Surviving the Entire Term

Vasu Reddy From Chicago
vasureddy@aol.com

When elected for an office the politicians typically focus on serving for a full term of the office, and when reelections are on the radar, they start preparing for contesting the elections again.  Typically incumbents present their accomplishments and their party’s accomplishments in the term they are serving and seek reelection for the next term.  Democracies allow for candidates to present and support their political party’s agendas, and if popular and acceptable to the public they will continue to be in the office for their full term, and if the administration is successful in meeting the needs of the electorate they get reelected.

 

In running a government with a group of coalition of parties, the dynamics of the ruling party get prioritized primarily with satisfying the demands of the coalition partners, rather than having a singular agenda for the national interest.  The coalition partners typically keeps shifting the demands it has for the leader of the coalition and the differences of objectives of each of the partners clash with each other, conflicting with the agenda of the leader of the coalition.  The demands on available resources and funding programs that are of importance to the individual partners of the coalition often conflict with each other, and put pressure on the governance.  There is the pressure of keeping the coalition together first as the government needs to survive the majority rules requirement, and then the continued demands of each of the partners to meet their own constituents needs.  With many promises made to each of the constituents, and the meager resources available to meet the demands of the nation, above all the planned incoming resources verses expenditures; all place a great demand on governing the nation.

 

The current government continues to survive on a regular basis despite the appearing and disappearing of coalition partners, and massive scams that involve national integrity and resources.  Along with changes to the cabinet which continues to evolve along with the changes to the coalition partners, it has been hard for the government to keep governing with the slew of scams.  The survival of the government has taken front seat, rather than the public agenda.

 

While the term of the current government is coming to a close, it continues to be precarious and partners ever more demanding.  The pressure of keeping the power outweighs the governance issues, and has affected the national to no end.  There is no end to the issues that are internal to the political party, and there is no sure shot way of setting goals that keep the people first.  The only mantra has been to be in power irrespective of the issues that face the citizens, and continue to make relationships to keep the term going.  There is no hope that the next government will have absolute majority to be in power for a full term without the threat of coalition partners ditching the governing and deliver to an agenda that is promised prior to the elections.

Divine Intervention

Vasu Reddy From Chicago
vasureddy@aol.com

For what it is worth, even the group that is trying to fight against corruption in India, it itself needed to have its own people be subjected to their own internal ombudsman.  It is not surprising to have one’s own introspection in an environment that has fully supported corruption everywhere and every part of the system.  There is no steadfast and quick fix to problems that have been entrenched in the political and bureaucratic system of the country prior to its independence in 1947.

Ombudsman in USA and some other democratic countries is an effective way of having governmental agencies respond to common man’s issues, and sometimes problems in having the systems perform their duties on time and correctly.  It’s a simple system that has someone who is watching the performance of government and its agencies.  Ombudsman works well in helping citizens with issues that are a bit more difficult to handle than a normal process of getting them done.  It is not a legal or bureaucratic system, rather a system that seeks resolution of issues of the people within the frame of legal and functional frame of the country’s political foundation.  It is a simple process of helping with the issues that falls into the cracks of massive bureaucracies.

India is beyond such organization that can help the common man with simple problems that have an organization that can help solve them.  Everywhere and anywhere in the country and in every organization both public and private, and any religious or educational institution we have issues of hands out for favors.

Not a single thing in life has been left for the common man to say “I can do this without problems and paying for it”, and nothing has been left unexploited.  The physical resources of the country, natural resources and even invisible resources such as airwaves have been thrown into scams and more scams.  Games to religion are fair game for the scamsters and they keep getting bigger and bigger.  All political parties and government agencies routinely have their hands out for a piece of the action, and everything needs the grease to get done.

While there is some talk of anti-corruption activism they themselves are falling into the scrutiny of their past and what they are doing now to get their agenda heard.  It costs money to do things and in such a broad spectrum of things to cover and a vast audience of people to reach, it will not be a free pass to even present ombudsman as an alternative to cut graft.  First ombudsman is not an anti graft vehicle, rather it’s a means to get things done for common man who runs into problems with the bureaucratic systems.  So, it as an alternative to managing graft is not a solution.  With the current state of affairs in India, it probably needs divine intervention.  As most Indians are (I hope) god fearing, we all probably should pray for some magical way for god to intervene and stop the graft in the country.  To leave this to mere mortals will be an impossibility that will not be handled as a true ombudsman, and will never realize the dream of helping a common man.

Is Anyone Left Without A Trace Of Misappropriation?

Vasu Reddy from Chicago

vasureddy@aol.com

Each day we hear of massive use of influence to build books and gain financial strength that is unimaginable in a business environment.  Each instance typically is backed with a government in power, and person of interest is either someone in power or related to someone in power.  You seldom hear of anyone who is not connected to a position of power.

 

Last couple of weeks have yielded great fodder with one building books from a few hundred thousand rupees to billions of rupees with in a fairly short span.  Typically when a company goes public through share markets, they can yield massive investments to great ideas, but not to real estate investments without any track record.  This really doesn’t mean that there was something wrong with the way business was built, just that the person who is building it and the support of the massive corporation that has helped build the books of a brand new company without any track record of performance.

India is place of great disparities and great differences in people and their living.  While the super rich have the resources and the ability to connect with investors and capital, it is also a market that fosters good/great ideas into opportunities for development and massive market growth.  The years of computing and customer support has seen massive growth with the Indian businesses, and many of the global information technology giants that have come out of India are new enterprises which were supported quickly by the public markets and fostered into massive billion dollar enterprises, without any hint of misappropriation or political support.  They were developed with market potential as the main backing and only controlled by performance.  Barring a big company example in computer services, all major Indian Information Technology companies have been excellent examples of global adaptation of Indian enterprises to meet the demands of the markets.

Highly competent and competitive people will find that the world embraces their work and will reward them, irrespective of the environment or country.  There is always acceptance for work and people who wants to work, and hard work has no other replacement.  It always rewards people who work hard.

While the latest incident for book building of a single individual who is well connected to perhaps the most powerful person in India could have been accomplished with market support, the conditions that surrounding the business development raise questions of quid co pro, placing the burden of proof with the accused, and although all powerful politically at the present time this is not going to go away quietly.  Even if this is pushed under the rug as long as the current leaders are in power, it is likely to continue to be a point of political discussion for years to come, and the current leaders are voted out of power, the new governments with start to which hunt the current accused.  The cycle of disruptive practices and politics will continue to haunt the country, and with each passing year the scandals and politicizing of them by opposition parties will be the norm of the system, rather than finding solutions for people’s issues.

It is a wonder that the country continues to function and actually grow with the politics and pillaging of the nations resources.  While the democratic wonder of India continues to surprise the world and itself, the continued scams that haunt every state, every department and every aspect of Indian life is a great distraction to its people, its economy and it way of life.

While no immediate solution is available for fixing the loop holes that allow people in power to loot public resources, it is appropriate that the country and its public start seriously look at putting a stop to the large scale misappropriation of national resources.  There are many democracies that for a long time continue to be democracies and foster public interest, and when there is a deviation of the public interest by the elected or appointed officials, they are quickly dealt with and sent home.  One of the greatest examples of such act of democracy without disruption of the national interest or economy was impeachment of President Nixon in the United States.  There are many such instances of change of power or change of functioning of governments without disruption of life in democracies.

India needs public response to these daily disruptions by vested interests, and only when people reject such blatant abuse of power, we will see restoration of public interest.  There is no sure cut way for restoring normal democracies that have such diverse tradition, culture, language and interests, but certainly the people of the country should come together to abolish the custom of public looting.

Oh My God!

Vasu Reddy From Chicago
vasureddy@aol.com

The idea of finding and defining the almighty has not been possible for humans from their inception, except the notion of the power of god is felt in varying times and in times of need for every person.  The attempt to find god has been attempted as long as human beings have been in existence and there is not a definitive case made of anyone really seeing and interacting with god.

The movie Oh My God, explores the human frailty in attempting to make a simple insurance claim being denied as an act of god, and then the person suing god for damages for loss of property and business, and then the entire episode of how he tries to convince the court to claim his damages.  Although the movie was adopted from a play, the essence of the power of logic and perseverance, the role of the almighty in a common man’s battle against being denied a legitimate insurance claim, and specially one man’s determination in displaying the logic of reality and simply working with the circumstances that arise with every instance in fighting against the system of injustice and loop holes is absolute master stroke.  This is not a review of the movie, rather the belief in the man upstairs in time of need.

I am first of all a believer in the guy upstairs and him watching our every move, and only fingering with instances where we really need help.  The very fact that we have life and have a long time on earth and the magic of life and death and the cycle of life itself is a miracle, and every human is blessed for whatever time is given on earth to fully live life to the fullest and be as accommodating and contributing to the fellow humans is god’s way of making us very valuable in the cycle of life.  Nothing is more precious as the gift of life, and we are already indebted to the man upstairs for giving us life.  We continue to burden god with the enormous appetite for each of our wants and our needs as typically met with the accommodations already made available to us on earth.

While we are at some time grateful for life. We do spend enormous amount of time thinking of better and bigger things in life, and better and bigger is typically materialistic and money related, and typically when we are asking for more is when we remember the man upstairs.

For love of god, we never seldom tell him we love him and we seldom thank him for what we already have, but simply keep asking him for this and that, and never think that he has billions of others and only god knows how many more living beings also asking for betterment of conditions around them, whatever it might be.

Going back to the movie, it was really touching to see a simple man who only uses logic to try to get back what is right fully his, and how the man who controls the powers of the world, simply points him to the right path.  Also, when really needed how god does show up in a form that gives a helping hand to the needy and rightfully, so and simply disappears when there is no further need for support.

Whether or not anyone likes the movie the message is fantastic and simple.  When in need god will help you to find the right direction, and it is up to the humans to make the nest out of the opportunity.  Doing the right thing will always lead to a happy ending and there will always be satisfaction of doing right thing, its human.