Fighting Corruption in India

I am reading and following the debates around the Anna Hazare's initiative for the Lokpal bill in India. I liked reading the post by Aativas about her visit to Ram Leela grounds where Anna Hazare is fasting.

It reminded me of my visit to those same grounds more than 30 years ago, perhaps it was in 1976, when I had gone there to listen to Jai Prakash Narayan. J.P. was talking of Sampoorna Kranti (total revolution) for changing India through grassroots democracy. 

Those were such heady days and for some time, I had dreamed that a different India was possible. India did change but not in the way JP had been saying. Looking back at the history shows that things hardly ever go any where in a straight line according to the plans, but they often go off on a tangent.

 

So I wonder where this Anna Hazare movement will take us.

I have also liked reading the report by Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) that points out a key facts:

(1) After liberalization, the number and scale of corruption has increased but the number of CBI investigations into cases of corruption have decreased. In 1991, CBI had 1,181 cases of corruption investigations, while in 2010, there were 731 cases.

(2) Central vigilance Commission (CVC) is India's main body for investigating cases of corruption among Government workers. However whenever, it receives information about corruption, it needs a sanction from Government to proceed with investigations. It seems that the Government denies sanction for investigation to more than 98% of all cases reported to CVC. Out of the 77,925 cases of corruption among government persons, the government gave permission to proceed in only 1,348 cases (1.7% of all cases).

I hope that Anna Hazare and his team will read the ACHR report and include appropriate suggestions in the Lokpal Bill.

Yesterday there was a tweet from Shashi Tharoor that corruption is not only 2G or CWG, but every time a woman has to pay bribe to get her pension, India's democracy is diminished. I agree completely with Shashi.

 

As we fight the big corruption by those in power, we must ask for a change so that the all pervasive daily corruption also goes.

Coincidences

When suddenly you start noticing coincidences, does it mean something?

Let me give you three examples of three recent coincidences, which happened over the last 3-4 days. I am wondering if these coincidences mean something and someone is trying to send me some message?

Red Tulips from the Film Silsila 

The first example of coincidences is about my blog. A few days ago, while searching for a picture in my image archive, I saw a picture of red tulips. It made me think about the well known Amitabh Bacchan and Rekha song from the Yash Chopra film "Silsila". So I spent some time searching for pictures of Tulip flowers that I had taken during my journeys and the next morning, chose three of those images for my photoblog.

After uploading my blogpost with the tulip pictures, I spent some time on internet to search for that Silsila song and watch it

The next day, a professor friend from India, who is visiting Bologna university for a few months, came to our home for dinner. While talking to him, suddenly he started talking to me about the film "Silsila".

Initially I thought that he had seen my photoblog and had seen my post about tulips where I had also mentioned "Silsila". However, after talking with him I realized that it was only a coincidence and he had not seen my blog.

 

The film Silsila had come out 30 years ago in 1981. I thought that it was a coincidence that I had thought of it on the same day and the professor saheb had talked about it by chance.

The James Joyce Coincidence

The second example is again related to my photoblog. Yesterday morning, looking at the pictures I had clicked last month in the northern city of Trieste, I selected three images of James Joyce for my blog.

I hardly knew anything about James Joyce except that he was considered an important figure in the world of English literature. So I checked about James Joyce on Wikipedia and read about his life and how he was forced to live in Trieste.

Yesterday afternoon, while waiting to go out, I switched on the TV and tried different channels. Suddenly I found a journalist talking about James Joyce in Trieste. Again, I was struck by the coincidence.

Importance of Being Earnest Coincidence

Now the third example - Yesterday afternoon while channel hopping, I saw a brief scene from a TV film called "Importance of being earnest", based on the novel by the same name, written by Oscar Wilde. I watched it for a few minutes and then changed the channel.

Today morning, at the website of the magazine Caravan, I opened an article about the review of Amitav Ghosh's new book, it started with the three lines that I had seen in the scene yesterday on the TV:

MISS PRISM: Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I wrote one myself in earlier days.

CECILY: Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope it did not end happily?…

MISS PRISM: The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means. (The Importance of Being Earnest)

Reading the dialogue between Miss Prism and Cecily seemed to me so strange, after having seen it by chance only yesterday.

Comments

By itself, each of these coincidences is something small and insignificant. However, this third coincidence made me think of this strange feeling over the past 3-4 days. So, I am starting to wonder - is there something more to these coincidences? is somebody trying to give me some message? if yes, what kind of message?

What do you think is happening? Am I making a mountain out of an ant hill?

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