This is just ridiculous !

Background Story:

One of the Senior Ministers of the UP Government Mr. Azam Khan of the Samajwadi Party recently went to US on a trip and was restrained on the Airport by the Airport Officials for about 45 minutes.

Now, What is Ridiculous:

So now before returning to India from the US Trip, Mr. Azam Khan issued a statement claiming that there was a conspiracy to defame him by none other than Mr. Salman Khurshid the External Affairs Minister of India.

He claims that Mr. Khurshid colluded with the Homeland Security of the US in order to defame him. As if the External Affairs Minister of India and the US Homeland Security are best buddies in the sense that they collude to take care of each other's personal vendettas.

He also mentioned that in the past prominent Indian people like the Hon. Ex President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had also been briefly retained at a US Airport but that was a "different issue" and should not be compared to his case.

Moreover he said that since he recently headed the organization of the Allahabad MahaKumbh (which according to him was very successfully conducted), he had gotten "International Recognition and Fame" and hence the conspiracy to defame him.

However he forgot to mention that it was the same Allahabad Maha Kumbh, during which we had a huge stampede and 36 people lost their lives and many more got injured and because of which he publicly had to tender his resignation for the post of the head of the Kumbh organization.

This article however is not at all intended to justify Mr. Azam Khan's detention at the Airport however it highly condemns his statements and allegations.

By making such farcical allegations against a senior leader (that too by a senior UP leader himself) not just makes a mockery of himself but degrades and embarrasses the whole of our Politicians and Leaders.

Ref: 1. Article_On_Times_Of_India

Empowerment !

In a country as vast and diverse as ours, Governance cannot be Centralized. We simply cannot expect a single person or a group of people to govern the Whole Country out of Delhi  or the State Capitals.

What we need is distribution of power, we need our people (ourselves) at the lowest levels to be empowered !

This thought stems out of the recent press conference by Mr. Arvind Kejriwal (AAP) during which in order to tackle the menace of the regular "inhuman activities towards women" happening in Delhi , he proposed creation of a "women protection cell" comprising of local people.

Even though it is extremely difficult to implement & function, the idea could really be effective. He talked about empowering people at the local levels who can help curb this menace and moreover help the victims (if any) and keep the administration (Police, Hospitals etc.) in check to function properly.

He called out for volunteers irrespective of their political ideology or following and gave a message something like "our own safety in our own hands".

The crux of the matter is we need to be more vocal, more attentive, more concerned & much less selfish towards the society we live in.

Investigative Media !

This post refers to one of the most important pillars of our Democracy i.e. the Media.

The media not only ensures that the people are well aware of what all is happening around us in our cities, states, the Country or the World but also reflects and reports on the performance of our leaders by taking up people's grievances or appreciations.

Following this chain of thought we need much more of an "investigative" media who at all levels i.e local,state or national keeps a check on what is happening.

We need our journalists and media to be much more of a democratic instrument whom the common people can use as a grievance or appreciation reporting tool.

For instance even at a district level we need our media to constantly report the problems that are being faced by the people, what steps are being taken by the administration, are our leaders and bureaucrats fulfilling their roles and responsibilities etc.

Throughout our history be it from the times of our freedom struggle to now, our media has been doing so and have been playing a very vital role in our system of governance but it needs to be more proactive and vigilant.

However it is of utmost importance that while doing so it has to abide by its core principles of unbiasedness, transparency and honesty.

Trust the System ?

This post again refers to one of the recent speeches made by Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav where he went on to claim that it is tough fighting with the Government as they can "use" the CBI and put anyone in Jail.

He also said that "Congress used to take support by threatening. I supported the UPA government in bad times but Congress has put CBI after me,"

Now these statements raises a lot of questions:

1. If a leader as tall as Mr. Mulayam Singh feels/finds that the Government is misusing the CBI, then why doesn't he ask for its autonomy i.e. making CBI an independent body like the Election Commission or the Judiciary ?

2. Why does one has to fear about any CBI/Legal investigations, if one has done nothing wrong ?

3. He says that Congress used to take support by threatening, does he mean to say that he was threatened into supporting the Congress led Government ?

4. If the Central Government is such a mess, why does he and his party still continue to support the central Government ?

5. His second statement is a contradiction on its own: he says that Congress used to take support by threatening (i.e. if somebody doesn't support then they put a CBI case on them), but the Samajwadi Party did support the Congress Government so going by Mr Mulayam Singh's logic he should have been immune to any cases but still there are misappropriation of assets cases against him.

6. If big leaders and politicians like Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav don't even have trust in our system, how can we expect the ordinary citizens to have so ?

We need to not only trust our systems but strengthen them. If at all we find anomalies like this in our systems we need to tackle it (and not succumb to) and make it much more stronger !