Corruption Kills

A factory operating out of a building with every exit locked and windows barred with iron grills caught fire killing its night-shift workers.

If corruption wasn't rampant in our nation, would the owners have dared to run a factory that flouted the most basic fire safety regulations and hadn't even got an NOC from the fire department? It is likely that the owners thought they could pay off the fire department official if he showed up to object; if he turned out to be scrupulous, there would be the friendly neighborhood politician to pressurize him into keeping quiet.

Is it also corruption at play that arrests the managers while making no mention of the owners? (Update: the article above has been updated to state that one of the managers is also the owner)

As this blog post by Jo Chopra McGowan points out, "Our health, our safety, our routines and our attitudes are all created, infected and reinforced by corruption."

Tragic. My heart goes out to the families that lost their loved ones...

Hatchet Therapy Indeed

The article Hatchet Therapy in Outlook news-magazine sums up the anti-Bhushan smear campaign while posing 10 unanswered questions:

• When Amar Singh says the CD is doctored, how come the CFSL concluded it is not?
• If CD isn’t doctored, how come Mulayam Singh’s 2006 lines match verbatim with 2011 CD?
• Which forensic reports can you trust when there are different CDs doing the rounds?
• Why is the Congress talking in two voices after relenting before the Jantar Mantar protest?
• Does Digvijay Singh’s attack on the Bhushans have the OK of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi?
• Was the Noida farmhouse land scam issue leaked because the CD story was losing steam?
• Are the Bhushans being attacked because they have stepped on too many toes?
• If the Bhushans are made to leave, will the smear campaign stop or will it go on?
• Could the relentless attacks result in a totally watered down Lokpal bill?
• Is the Congress endearing itself to voters with its tacit support to the attacks?

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Other media houses show themselves in extremely poor light, with the Indian Express, which was once known to be a crusader for the truth, writing up just plain lies around land allotment to the Bhushans, mischievously ignoring the facts. The NOIDA Development Authority CEO is on record saying "We had about 160 applicants and 97 or 98 of those have got the plots so far and the Bhushans were among them. We are still interviewing the applicants and more applicants may get plots if they qualify".

Another individual who has been paraded by our "impartial media" is Vikas Singh who has been slandering the Bhushans from dubious, if not false, moral high ground.

Swapan Das Gupta sums up what the Congress is trying to do to anti-corruption legislation. It is no mystery why -- years and years of pillaging this nation along with their allies means that an effective anti-corruption law will have most (if not all of them) cooling their heels in prison for a long long time.

Satyamev Jayate.

Stop Corporal Punishment

A class 8 boy, who was recovering from a brain tumour, was hit on the head by his teacher because he was unable to stand up in class as punishment. It sent him back to hospital.

The teacher's excuse -- she didn't know he'd had surgery so thought he was free game to be smacked around. Irrespective of whether the boy was healthy or not, the teacher had no right to strike him. Our children are NOT free game for random teachers to exercise power over and use as punching bags to remove sundry frustration.

Also, while I am not aware whether corporal punishment in schools is banned by law, the Supreme Court's views are definitely on the record against it, thereby making it contempt of court to physically punish children in school.

This is not the first instance of corporal punishment being highlighted by the media. Which is why I am shocked that despite all the outrage that has been expressed against corporal punishment over the last few years, teachers still don't get the message.

Not only should the law come down strongly on teachers who practise corporal punishment AND principals and school administrators who hire them, what is also needed is a concerted effort to make educators aware that corporal punishment amounts to contempt of the highest court of the land and is therefore punishable by imprisonment.

Corporal punishment is also against our children and surely does not in any way help forward their education.

Stop corporal punishment now!

A Request to the Civil Society Activists of the Jan Lok Pal Bill panel

A sincere request to all the civil society participants of the Jan Lok Pal Bill panel. Please do not quit the panel.

We the people of India are watching a vicious smear campaign being unleashed against  you by govt and non-govt representatives (the Singhs Digvijay and Amar being at the forefront of it). The "free press" instead of practising journalism, has morphed into a mouthpiece of the corrupt with no intention of letting the truth triumph. Despite all the allegations being proved false *with* documentary evidence, the media is still attacking you in the hope of getting a sleazy soundbite (and maybe a generous scrap from the corrupt pie?)

• The CD has been verified to be doctored by two independent laboratories of impeccable repute
• The Noida Development Authority stand by the land allotment and has transparently explained the process
• Justice Santosh Hegde's integrity is above reproach  

Yet, the soundbite media continues to hold out the pail of mud so the lowest of the low have an easy time sloshing it around.

This kind of relentless mudslinging causes emotional trauma -- since each of you are personally people of high integrity and ethical standing. I understand that it is painful to see your character being tainted by lies and falsehood. Pain is what the corrupt want to cause -- enough pain so that you retreat from drafting the anti-corruption bill and let them continue to rule the roost.

Do not hand the corrupt a victory. For the sake of the nation -- I urge you to bear lies and smears and stay in the panel to help draft a strong Lok Pal Bill.

Satyamev Jayate.

What Happened to Investigative Journalism?

The Jan Lok Pal Bill movement is awash with mudslinging on the civil society participants of the drafting committee. Anonymous CD's claiming the Bhushans can fix sitting Supreme Court justices, land allotment "scams" created on the fly, stamp duty "evasion" discovered overnight, Santosh Hegde being told he's partial and politically motivated, and who knows what else yet to come.

What saddens me most is the role of the media. I don't see a single media house even *attempting* investigative journalism. Instead it's all about hurling microphones in the face of civil society activists and asking questions that range from irrelevant to downright stupid.

To elaborate, when the CD controversy emerged, the Bhushans got the CD verified by two independent and respectable laboratories in India and the US. Their findings were made public. Responsible journalism would have analyzed the track record of the laboratories, what the findings exactly stated, where else the laboratories had weighed in, the impact of their analyses in the past and therefore the probability of their analysis being correct (or otherwise) in this instance.

Instead, to date the media continues to say the Bhushans "claim" the CD is doctored, while harping about a government laboratory claiming the CD isn't doctored. The government laboratory, in a CYA measure, also stated that it needed further inputs to be sure. That of course has been lost in the noise.

It would, of course, be laughable to suggest that the media has done *any* investigation into the techniques and equipment used for analysis by the various laboratories. No one in the media has made ANY attempt to find out who is behind the CD either.

All of this makes me wonder whether the media is as uncomfortable with a strong Lok Pal Bill being implemented as are the corrupt who are clearly trying to scuttle it. Have the media denizens gotten so used being thrown generous scraps by the corrupt political class? We have heard of enough scandals that involve our media "stalwarts" who brazenly continue to be on air despite ample evidence indicting them. 

Now, to another point.

The Bhushans, Santosh Hegde, Arvind Kejriwal and Anna Hazare are honest, upright people who are NOT personally corrupt.
 
Let's, for a hypothetical moment, assume that all of the civil society participants are indeed corrupt to the core. Why, then would they be trying to draft an anti-corruption bill against THEMSELVES? And -- isn't it then in the interest of the nation to have a strong Lok Pal Bill under which they can then be prosecuted?

I support the civil society activists and all their hard work in trying to make the Lok Pal Bill a reality. I trust that other fellow Indians are wise enough to not fall for mindless sound bites and give this nation a chance to move out of the quagmire of corruption it has descended into. The results of various polls conducted by diverse sources give me hope. We the people of India WANT a strong Jan Lok Pal Bill, support our civil society activists, and can see through the media shenanigans.

To conclude -- a word of advice to the media. Use the time until the Lok Pal Bill becomes reality to clean up your act instead of siding with the corrupt to try and scuttle it.

Satyamev Jayate.

PS: More about the Bhushans here.