Sunday, August 12, 2012

AND LIFE GOES ON.....


Moral policing is alive and kicking in Mangalore. Its sponsors, the ruling party in Karnataka, is gleeful about it. Every time an incident does take place, ticket & position aspirants of the ruling party are let loose to divert the attention away from the incident. The MLA and MP of the area maintain stoic silence or if they do speak, it is to condemn the victim. A partisan Police force worsens the position. It’s little wonder that in India V stands for victim!
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Travel takes me through airports on a regular basis. I have observed the CISF personnel ,who handle the security, with amusement. A GMR employee told me that they aren't trained for the job on hand. Some of them could have been manning security at a coal mine in their previous posting. They remind me of cowherds herding the cattle class! As we head closer to Independence day, these guys swell in importance. The frisking is done twice, the scanner crawls, bags are opened, questions asked, assortment of stuff sniffed, and the queue at the security check lengthens. Some among them swagger around with automatic weapons; some others hang around specially erected sand bag barriers. Why only during Independence Day? Any terrorist would know it’s the annual security circus around this time. So would he arrive with his wares to celebrate Independence Day? (And on 14th August, when I passed through security, the date stamp showed 13th August. When the attention of the CISF man was directed to this, he sheepishly changed the date on the stamp. Wonder how many passengers noticed, or how many security personnel noticed)
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Corruption is here to stay. A certain minister in the UP government was candid when he told the babus, 'steal but do not loot'. Either the poor chap was naive or else he was probably getting it across to the babus that looting is the prerogative of the politicians! Meanwhile, the self-appointed guardian of black money, Ramdev, is growling at the government. That he is abetted in his endevour by the saffron brigade is obvious. For all the incoherent talk that he lets loose on his audience, he seems to have a cure for all ailments of India; from banning big denomination notes to estimating that 100 lakh crores is enough to solve all problems in India. Funny chap! If the NDA comes to power, would Ramdev be a minister? He does have aspirations.....
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Rain has played truant in my part of the country. It’s been playing hide and seek for some time & in the process it has made fools of the weather forecasters. It has also managed to fool the pundits who refer to stars to predict rain. So much so, the government granted rupees 17 crores of tax payers to appease the rain god. But that was only to the Hindu temples, other places of worship were asked to pray, without getting entangled in the money trap. From the past 4 days, the coastal districts of my state are receiving copius rain. But the rest of the state is hit by a drought.
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It has rained heavily in Mangalore. Perhaps the rain god wants to wash off the sins of the moral police?
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