Reason why RTI (Amendment) Bill, 2019 is a Welcome Move

Government has introduced an RTI amendment bill which enables it to fix salaries and tenure of CICs: 

The government on Friday introduced a bill in Lok Sabha to amend the Right to Information Act, which would allow the Centre to decide tenure and salaries of state and central information commissioners, amid protests from opposition parties.

Introducing the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in Lok Sabha, minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh said it aims at institutionalisation, streamlining and ease of delivery of RTI Act, adding that it as an enabling legislation for administration purposes. He claimed that the government’s commitment to transparency could not be questioned and blamed the then UPA government for not making proper rules to implement the RTI Act when it was enacted in 2005. 

“You have made a clumsy Act in haste. We are only trying to strengthen it,” Singh claimed.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/bill-to-amend-rti-introduced-amid-opposition-protests/articleshow/70301535.cms

Reading about this amendment bill, it can be easily understood that this bill does not touch the core purpose of the RTI act and it is meant only for correcting the salary and tenure part. It is very simple. If Govt appoints CIC, govt should have right to decide on his salary. In original bill, CIC salary was put at par with CEC while it was realized later that CIC and CEC have diversely different roles and hence their salary etc should not be linked/matched. So this amendment will rectify it and de-couple the two positions which were never related to begin with. What is big deal? It is a simple and logical amendment.

But opposition parties are trying to create an impression as if core principle of RTI act is being touched upon in this amendment, which is totally false. 

RTI mainly brings bureaucracy under the task and hence politicians do not hate it as much as bureaucracy does. RTI became irrelevent after Modi govt came to power and large scale corruption stopped. Now we do not hear about RTI much because of this reason. The amendment is good because it gives flexibility to govt to decide on tenure and salary of CIC and it is true that CIC's role is not comparable to the role of Election Commission. So the amendment will not do any harm to the act, it will only stop CIC from becoming autocratic.

- Rahul 

Clear Division of Ideologies in Indian Political Landscape

I think the ideological landscape is more clear today than ever was. 

BJP in the rightist space is clearly nationalist, takes lot of pride in being a strong nation internationally, is pro majority. 

On the other hand, Urban Naxal parties are clearly minority appeasing and have short sighted policies like voter appeasement through giving freebies etc, have dynastic and family dependent organization. 

It is clear that urban naxals have totally lost the plot and have only doom in store for their future.

बिहार में बच्चों की इंसेफ्लाइटिस से मौत पर एक व्यक्ति की टिपण्णी

यह तस्वीर याद है आपको ?????

इसे नाम दिया गया था -The vulture and the little girl 

इस तस्वीर में एक गिद्ध भूख से मर रही एक छोटी लड़की के मरने का इंतज़ार कर रहा है । इसे एक साउथ अफ्रीकन फोटो जर्नलिस्ट केविन कार्टर ने 1993 में सूडान के अकाल के समय खींचा था और इसके लिए उन्हें पुलित्जर पुरस्कार से सम्मानित किया गया था । लेकिन कार्टर इस सम्मान का आनंद कुछ ही दिन उठा पाए क्योंकि कुछ महीनों बाद 33 वर्ष की आयु में उन्होंने अवसाद से आत्महत्या कर ली थी ।

ऐसा क्यों हुआ था ????

दरअसल जब वे इस सम्मान का जश्न मना रहे थे तो सारी दुनिया में प्रमुख चैनल और नेटवर्क पर इसकी चर्चा हो रही थी । उनका अवसाद तब शुरू हुआ जब एक 'फोन इंटरव्यू' के दौरान किसी ने पूछा कि उस लड़की का क्या हुआ???

कार्टर ने कहा कि वह देखने के लिए रुके नहीं क्यों कि उन्हें फ्लाइट पकड़नी थी । इस पर उस व्यक्ति ने कहा कि "मैं आपको बताना चाहता हूँ, कि उस दिन वहां दो गिद्ध थे जिसमें से एक के हाथ में कैमरा था !!"

इस कथन के भाव ने कार्टर को इतना विचलित कर दिया कि वे अवसाद में चले गये और अंत में आत्महत्या कर ली । 

किसी भी स्थिति में कुछ हासिल करने से पहले मानवता आनी ही चाहिए । कार्टर आज जीवित होते अगर वे उस बच्ची को उठा कर यूनाईटेड नेशन्स के फीडिंग सेंटर तक पहुँचा देते जहाँ पहुँचने की वह कोशिश कर रही थी ।

आज इस घटना के 26 सालो बाद, ये कैमरे वाले गिद्ध मुजफ्फरपुर के हाॅस्पिटलो मे मंडरा रहे है । तस्वीरे खींच रहे है , अपने गंदे जूतो और कैमरो के साथ शोर मचाते हुए , अस्पताल के I.C.U. मे घुसे जा रहे है । डाॅक्टरो पर रौब गालिब कर रहे है । जान बचाने की जद्दोजहद मे लगे डाॅक्टरो को हड़का रहे है।

इन गिद्धो को मरने बच्चो से सरोकार नही है , केवल चैनल की T.R.P. और खबर मे मसाला डालकर चटपटा बनाना है । ये बच्चो के शवो को नोच कर खा जाने को आमादा गिद्ध है। 

केविन कार्टर में शर्म हया बची हुई थी , जिससे उसने आत्महत्या कर ली थी । मगर इन गिद्धो ने तो ईमान के साथ साथ आत्मा भी बेच खाई है। और पूरा देश ब्रैकिंग न्यूज देख रहा है ।

- संजय कुमार

Delhi Mukherjee Nagar Violence and Sikh Politics Over the Driver

A day before, an incident happened in Delhi's Mukherjee Nagar area which caused huge storm on the social media and thanks to the divisive politics by Sikh politicians, created huge uproar. Elections are coming in Delhi and hence this whole episode was given a political twist. 

An auto rickshaw driver had an altercation with a policeman in front of the police station. According to police's report, the auto driver had parked his vehicle at wrong place and hence a policeman asked him to move; to which he refused and brought out a sword to threaten the policeman. This is clearly seen in the video that the Sikh driver had brought out his sword and was threatening the lone policeman. Since the policeman was alone, he goes back to the police station and calls his colleagues who come and beat up the driver. The driver himself appears to be highly violent. He can be seen attacking policemen with his sword. One policeman in white civilian shirt was hurt and bloodied all over. 

The driver's son first tries to control and cool down his father. But when he sees his father surrounded and being beaten up, he brings his auto rickshaw and tries to bang it on the policemen. The policemen then beat up the son too. 

Out of this whole episode, a pro-Sikh faction is showing only the part where policemen are beating up the driver while clipping the video. But thanks to some other users on Twitter who shared the other part of the video, the real episode is captured. 

You can check this out here: https://twitter.com/pokershash/status/1140583341751590912

Now a Sikh MLA from Delhi saw this opportunity as a communal opportunity to enrage the Sikh community and get himself raised as a champion. He is from the Akali Dal which is partner to the ruling party BJP. The Sikh MLA made huge noise and approached Amit Shah too and got 3 policemen immediately suspended. He was hailed as a great Sikh champion. No one cared that the how the policemen would feel about this.

Afterwards, Aam Aadmi Party which is in power in Delhi state, fearing that they had lost a golden political opportunity, started making lots of noise. A lot has been posted on the social media. Sikhs have been made angry and there is an attempt to divide Hindus and Sikhs and to make this a Sikh Vs Hindu issue too (since the driver was Sikh while policemen were apparently Hindus). 

This is really a sad incident. The driver appears to be really violent. It is a shameful thing that Sikh community people have been misled by politicians. No one should support such a violent driver. There is no surprise that in an enquiry afterwards, the Sikh driver has been found to have criminal history.

Btw, the so called "brutally thashed" Sikh driver had started giving interviews soon after the episode. In the videos, he appears quite fit and fine.

I had watched one of his interviews on TV yesterday. The journalist asked him why he took out his sword in the beginning, at a time when there was only one unarmed policeman arguing with him. The driver says that he brought sword only when a dozen policemen started beating him with sticks. The journalist says that other policemen came much later but he is seen carrying sword at the beginning of the video itself, at that time there was only one unarmed policeman arguing with him on the road. Why did he pull his sword out and threaten the policeman? The driver once again just says that he pulled out sword only after he was beaten up. Clearly, this driver was a liar. He might not have watched the video properly at that time and hence he was shamelessly telling a lie in front of the camera. All the Sikh people who are supporting this liar, are they really proud of this? It is not possible to be a righteous citizen and still support this lying crooked driver; whichever religion he comes from. 

The driver has become rich as expected:

The politician Kapil Mishra did good job on his Twitter account by showing pictures of the policeman who was attacked by the violent sword bearing driver:

Though Kapil did not leave any chance to expose Arvind Kejriwal, a late entrant in this Sikh politics: 

Several other Twitter users also tried to bring sense in the incident by highlighting the violence caused by the sword bearing driver:

MS Sirsa, the Sikh Akali Dal MLA who started giving this incident this whole "Sikh" twist by supporting the driver just because he was a Sikh; has started flaunting his Twitter credentials which soared after this incident. Funny thing is that this self-boasting Tweet got only 15 likes and single re-tweet. Fitting reply to the ruckus creator by other Twitter users:

Delhi Police may have brutally thrashed the driver, but from the videos it appears to have happened only because the driver was threatening them with a sword. People need to have some fear. Beating up folks on the road is not required, but what would police do if someone starts abusing them and chasing them carrying a sword in his hand? At other places, police would have shot such a violent person dead. But in this case, suspending three policemen without an enquiry is bad.

It was a shameful event and the manner in which Delhi's politicians have used Sikh population for their divisive intentions, it is shameful. Also, how a lot of Sikhs on social media blindly believed the politician's version and his half-cut video; is questionable. The driver was really violent and he does not need to be supported.

Idea of a Greater India - Akhand Bharat

Someone said that the idea of "Akhand Bharta" or "Undivided India" is a myth and quoted Winston Churchill as saying that India was as much a nation as was Equator. He said that India once was divided into hundreds of small kingdoms and hence the idea of a single nation itself is absurd; forget about the idea of a Greater India with regions like current Afghanistan being part of it. 

First, countries do not just become; those are made; often by great people. Every country was once just a geographical area or a collection of scattered villages or tribal territories with nothing in common. So looking at any idea with a baggage of historical account fixated in mind does not help. 

It is true that once there was a greater India which was unified for certain periods in history. During the time of Ashoka or during Maratha empire, India was extended on the north. But due to Islamic uprising, Afghanistan region took different path. Even today, the names like "Afghanistan" etc have Sanskrit origin (Sthan = place). 

No matter what, as Indians we feel proud of the fact that once we were greater than we are currently. And there is nothing wrong in it.