Ram:
The degree or extent of corruption, as YOU or SD PERCEIVE is entirely
immaterial to the issue at hand.
Your assertions on the matter is entirely subjective. You or I cannot
prove or disprove the extent or degree of corruption. More credible
and knowledgeable people than yourself or SD will dispute your
assertions.
But that is not necessary. We both know that corruption is PERVASIVE
and deeply rooted ALL OVER INDIA. When Prez, Kalam was agonizing over
it last week, he did not pick Assam. It was about India.
You fabricated the question the other day: Are you now saying that NO
Axomiya officers/politicians have not shared in the loot?
Can you show us when I EVER made such a comment? At no time have I
ever made that assertion or even implied it.
But the real issue is Indian governance: Its inability to stem this
ever worsening phenomenon. The fact is that desi-demokrasy is so
thoroughly broken that it has NO institution of state to
charge-sheet, investigate, adjudicate
and punish the guilty. There is NO DETERRENCE of any kind. Not
ethical/moral/societal, and none governmental.
Question is do you or SD know that?
I don't know about SD, he may truly be ignorant. But I don't believe
you to be so for a moment :-). You know exactly where the problems
lie, but cannot face up to acknowledging them because I made it
extremely uncomfortable for you to , years ago :-), by connecting it
with Assamese disaffections and ULFA's emergence to the subject.
Unfortunately you make yourself look clueless, over and over again,
by putting forth arguments like:
A number of have stated in these columns, that corrupt govt. or
officers can be >dealt with a coordinated effort by the media, RTI,
people etc. Now, the results >may not be immediate as one would
wish, but a constant and frequent exposure of >corrupt officials and
politicians would hit home ultimately.
That is your choice, and my pleasure :-).
But you, and others who make such arguments are NOT contributing
anything to a solution, by refusing to acknowledge the problem.
c-da
PS: I will send you another TS article in the next post.
At 10:13 AM -0600 11/27/06, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
C'da,
Thanks for the posting. Tavleen always does a good job of bringing
these issues to the forefront - and legitimately so.
TS correctly zeroes in on corruption as the root cause. But even TS
will agree that there are stark differences even in this corruption
when it comes to Assam and a state like Maharastra.
Questions for you and Tavleen:
Will Maharastra tolerate frequent and long drawn out load sheddings?
How many villages in Maharastra are electrified (as compared to Assam)
How many driveable road miles are there in Assam and Maharastra
What % of the roads in Maharastra are absolutely deplorable (again
as compared to Assam).
No, these are just questions to ponder, and most of us know the
answers. Comparing problems in Mumbai to those in Assam is like
comparing NYC to Mumbai.
It is mind-boggling as to why we have such a high degree of
tolerance toward large scale corruption that is throttling the very
life out of the state?
Basically, it does not even matter if the rest of the states are
more corrupt than Assam. They may be able to afford that luxury,
Assam cannot.
--Ram
On 11/27/06, Chan Mahanta
<<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I am re-posting the following for Ram and Sandip Dutta to read,
before I return back to the discussions.
cm
Horrible Condition of our Roads
On the Spot
Tavleen Singh
The first convoy of official cars I encountered, driving to Pune
last week, flew saffron flags on every car of the size you normally
see atop temples. My driver spotted Bal Thakeray in one of the white
ambassadors. No sooner did we pass Mcdonald's in Panvel (a
travellers' watering hole) than I spotted another official convoy.
This time no saffron flags, only a car filled with policemen in
front of a grey Land Cruiser behind which was another car also filled
with policemen and officials. Alone in the back of the Land Cruiser
sat Sharad Pawar.
The coincidence of encountering Maharashtra's two most powerful
political leaders on the same journey made me reflect upon the role
of politics in preventing India from building the infrastructure it
so badly needs. Pawar and Thakeray would have driven down the same
road I had taken from Mumbai so they could not have failed to notice
its condition. It is no longer a road so much as a dirt track on
which you bump your way from ditch to ditch to ditch. This is after
you have driven bumper to bumper past Chembur's hideous slums where
public toilets are so clogged that people prefer to squat along the
main road beside the rotting garbage in which pigs, dogs and
barefoot children scrabble for food. Did Mr Pawar notice? Did Mr
Thakeray who has built a political career out of inciting Marathi
pride?
Mumbai is Maharashtra's proudest possession. Any talk of it being
taken out of the State Government's control causes hackles to rise
across political divisions and yet none of this State's mighty
leaders appears to have paid any attention to the most basic
requirements of social infrastructure: clean water, sanitation and
housing. Had they paid attention, then instead of slums in Chembur
there would have been affordable housing for the poor.
Instead of evil slum lords there would have been legitimate real
estate companies controlling the housing market.
As for the dreadful condition of Indian roads, please allow nobody
to fool you into believing that our roads are bad because of a
shortage of funds. They are bad mainly because they have been built
to last no longer than a single season of rain. Why? Perhaps because
the contractors who build them are well connected enough to be given
the same contract every year. You notice this more on the drive from
Mumbai to Pune than on any other road because when you get onto the
expressway you realize that India can build roads that do not
collapse with the rain.
Once you get onto the expressway you drive along the best road in
India that has remained totally intact despite this year's
unprecedented rainfall. When I asked a friend in the construction
business why this was so he said, "Simple. The Mumbai-Pune
expressway was built by responsible construction companies with
reputations to protect. Usually roads are built either by faceless
CPWD engineers or by small contractors with big connections."
So one of the flaws in the system is that political leaders hand out
major road contracts to builders who would not pre-qualify to build a
public toilet in a more sensible country. The reason for this is
that the system we devised for these things places total emphasis on
cost and none on quality. He who makes the lowest bid wins the
contract, so to cover his costs he cuts corners and uses cheap
materials and outdated technology.
He could not care less if the road he builds does not survive a
single monsoon because he has, more often than not, a connection
high up enough for him to get the contract to rebuild the road again
and again. This is true across the length and breadth of our dear
Bharat Mata which is why we are internationally renowned for having
the worst roads in the world.
I got off the expressway at Chinchwad which is one of Maharashtra's
leading industrial towns. Many of India's biggest manufacturing
companies have factories here and the municipality is believed to be
one of our richest but the road I drove down was so narrow and
gutted that I was stuck in an hour long traffic jam consisting
mainly of massive articulated lorries with names like MAERSK painted
on their sides. The eternal clash between the new 'emerging' economy
and our ancient, socialist infrastructure.
The clash would not exist if only we could get our political leaders
to understand that unless they put infrastructure (both social and
physical) at the top of their list of priorities we will still be
talking about our 'potential' to be an economic superpower fifty
years from now. If we can just build the roads and do something
about the appalling state of our cities and towns we can start
making our economic superpower dream a reality in the next five
years. These were the gloomy thoughts of your humble columnist as I
drove past a sign that warned motorists to be careful on the upcoming
bridge because its condition was 'dangerous.' If we were really on
our way to superpowerdom then instead of the sign we would have seen
a repaired bridge. I could go on and on and on.
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