Making India Corruption-free

In the last few months, based on the submissions of CBI, Hon. Supreme Court closed the Bofors case, some cases against Lalu Prasad Yadav and today against Jagdish Tytler. It is clear that our Hon. Supreme Court is burdened with numerous such frivolous cases and hence it is left with hardly any time to deal with the other cases pending since its inception.

In order to lessen the artificial burden thrust on the shoulders of our SC, time is ripe for the parliament to act quickly. Tarantula has a suggestion and hopefully it will find the approval of several important sections of the society, including politicians, babus, contractors, middlemen, smugglers, black marketers, rioters and other criminals.

In reality, this suggestion is so simple; Tarantula wonders why none of our brilliant parliamentarians thought of it so far.

Parliament should bring in a bill in the morning session of tomorrow, by burning tonight’s midnight oil, to the following effect:

All the corruption, riot, murder, rape, land grab and such other cases of comparable magnitude pending in various Indian courts as of tonight deemed as closed and the people charged are set free with a clean chit. All acts of corruption till midnight tonight, which are yet to be booked, which are similar in nature to aforesaid crimes, should get a general amnesty and deemed as closed once for all.

The wonderful aspect of this bill is that India becomes Corruption-free at the stroke of midnight just it has become independent when 15th August 1947 has ushered in. It will prove all the skeptics, who believe that India can never become a corruption-free country, wrong at one stroke of genius. Such a bill will go through both the the houses of parliament without any acrimony with or without party whips as none will say nay. This will give an opportunity to all those to breath a sigh of relief and start with renewed vigor a new chapter tomorrow, afresh.

Voyage to Eyjafjallajökull

The time is ripe and just right to send an all but one or two MP delegation to Eyjafjallajökull urgently to have first hand information of the situation over there.

Some of the acrobatic MPs who habitually jump into the well of the Parliament may be allowed to jump into the mouth of this volcano at their own risk and get a better feel.

On their successful return, we should give them a rousing reception. They can also share their experiences with voters in coming elections how the nation should face natural calamities with a brave front. Such election speeches will be a welcome change to voters who are fed on same insipid stuff for last 63 years.

One of the couple of exceptions we talked about is our PM. He is a tired man after his recent trips and his return trip via Johannesburg to avoid ashes from Eyjafjallajökull. Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor should stay back and be in constant touch with the entire delegation to give us updates through his tweeting.

Who is Better Trained and Equipped?

It is not uncommon to see photos of police firing teargas shells at demonstrators to take control of the situation. The photo dated today shown below is a picture in contrast. Readers of Tarantula may recall the post “Where is Unemployment?” where in we discussed about stone-pelting industry in J&K. This photo shows that J&K also has hi-tech industry with well trained, agile, motivated and athletic looking youth to throw teargas shells at police! It is difficult to find a policeman or a para-military who can throw with comparable agility, focus and concentration.

A protester carries a burning teargas canister to hurl it back at police during a stir in Srinagar on 13th April 2010.

Dantewada carnage in which 74 plus CRPF personnel died makes one think whether the CRPF is trained and adequately equipped to meet the challenges posed by Maoists.


THE ROAD TO HEAVEN, OR IS IT?: The marker stone for a temple beside a road going to Chintalnad, which has witnessed a lot of violence.

Son of a famous film star and congress party MP was arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) on 19 April 1993. A big catch of weapons in his possession, were supposedly of such latest designs and so sophisticated, the envious military officials who had a look at them wanted such weapons, at that point of time, for Indian Army.

Persecution of Minds

Galileo Galilei defended Heliocentrism, a quantum step towards a scientific truth, away from Geocentricism and the antagonized church awarded him life imprisonment, narrowly avoiding death sentence. Defiant Galileo said "Eppur si muove" which means And yet it moves (Nonetheless, it moves).

Bertrand Russell was against conscription, atomic bombs and several other things. Once he was sentenced to six months in Brixton Prison for his views published in an article. He was arrested at the age of 89, during a demonstration against the atomic bomb. One of the finest thinkers of 20th century is at loggerheads with the state for expressing views.

Robert James "Bobby" Fischer, one of the finest chess players of our times had to live and die in exile as a fugitive from justice for his anti-American and anti-Semitic views. He lived a reclusive life in Iceland and died in Reykjavik.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1991 continues to be in the custody of junta.

India's 95-year old renowned painter M F Husain, often called as Picasso of India, who has been under attack from some religious fundamentalists for his paintings of Hindu goddesses has been given Qatar nationality and he had to relinquish his Indian nationality.

Moral of these real life stories is that one can express views against institutions governing religion or nation or military or so called moral police at the cost of being exiled and persecuted till death or may be even after. At the same time, a safe life and haven are guaranteed to murderers, plunderers of national wealth, corrupt officials, mafia etc. at taxpayer’s expense.