Mr. Kejriwal delhi protest on bill

“If the Jan Lokpal Bill is not passed then….I would quit as the Chief Minister of Delhi.”

“If power politics is not sorted out in Delhi, Kejriwal will quit his CM office and sit on a Dharna”

“If the police officials will not obey his orders, Delhi CM will quit from his primary duties and will stage protests.”

By now we have got used to such dramatic headlines. The man-turned-messiah will QUIT if issues like bijli, pani, corruption, fuel and so on are not sorted out instantly. Now my reaction or rather a question to him as a citizen of the country would be that if you would keep quitting as the chief minister of Delhi for every damn reason, could you please explain how do you plan to change the entire system? I am sure an ex-IIT working in a highly paid job in some MNC certainly can’t. Neither can an employee of Indian Revenue Services do so. We gave you this post to utilize the power to bring about the change which we were looking forward to, since last so many years. And all we get after a couple of months are your threatening dramas to quit. If you had to quit then why did you actually contest for the elections, in the first place?

It is not an individual but a chair which holds the authority. You lose the chair, you lose the authority! Haven’t you heard of the grandma stories in which the fairy gave a magic wand to the little boy but also took a primes that he will never misuse it?  Since our childhood we have known that in order to kill the ghost we need a magic wand but the rider was that we could not misuse it.

When we grew up, we came to terms with the reality that the magic wand which our grandmother spoke about was nothing but the authority we earn in order to do justice to the system. You cleared the entrance examination of one of the prestigious engineering institutes; obviously it would not have been an easy task. Had you quit at that point of time would you be standing where you do today?

Your idea behind threatening (personally I would call it black-mailing) the system to either comply to your orders or you would resign is born out of the fact that in these 65 odd years after the independence the political parties or babus per se with all their ill-intentions and deeds have led us to believe that the politicians crave for glamour and money which are the byproducts once you win the elections.

Do you also believe in this notion, dear CM? If not then why do you keep harping the same old tune of quitting if this does not happen if that does not happen. It just dawned on me that if a few issues concerning a single city can compel you to leave your post and go back home, then how do you plan to take charge of 28 states and seven union territories?  I seriously shudder at the thought of having a Prime Minister who sits on dharnas to change the system instead of diligently making use of the power to do away with corruption and lawlessness.

Mr Kejriwal, I am sure you know that system is not a switch which can be turned on and off as per your or our wishes. There is a certain procedure which has to be followed for anything to take the shape of a law. If you feel you really have the guts enough then why don’t you make use of your intellect and your authority which the people gave you to bring about the change all of us are looking forward to?

The long forgotten home-spun ‘Gandhi cap’ which you and your party workers wear would appear nothing more than a bait to draw our attention towards a party which is here to reinforce the ideology of the Father of our Nation. But the great man who we fondly refer as ‘bapu’ just refused to give up! QUIT was the word which never existed in his dictionary. Rather he advocated and gave his blood and sweat to show the British, the exit door in his Quit India Movement.

One can well imagine the kind of protests Gandhi would have had to face to do away with issues like poverty, expanding women’s rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability-when he had to fight not just with the ruling British Raj but more importantly with the stringent and rotten system of our society which just could not accept the change Bapu wanted to bring in. But today we are an independent nation with proper laws and the strength of educated and open minded citizens who are there to back the leader who promises to make diligent use of his power. So what is the need to quit at the drop of a hat?

The term Satyagraha was coined during Mahatma Gandhi’s fight for independence which means protesting in a peaceful manner. This word has been misinterpreted by our political leaders now-a-days. A single issue crops up and they are ready to leave their prime job and are out on streets to protest!

“Satyagraha” is a Tatpuruṣa compound of the Sanskrit words satya (meaning “truth”) and Agraha(“insistence”, or “holding firmly to a view”). Satyagraha was an intelligent move to instill a feeling of democracy amongst people and to keep the evil intentions of the British at bay, without causing any loss to human life or property.  Fighting violently against a system which was festooned not just with arms and ammunitions but with stringent laws resulted in our heroes like Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev and the likes sacrificing their lives for our freedom.

I am not at all against the extremists. We have just heard the stories of the freedom struggle, just read the anecdotes, just saw our actors reliving their lives but certainly we were not a part of that era which witnessed blood-shed everywhere. The scene was totally different, anarchy prevailed, there was total chaos and lawlessness which led these young and brave freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh to take the law in their hands.

But today the scene is totally different. We do not have ‘Viceroy’s of India’ who were once permitted to indict all sort of atrocities on the populace. Today we have an elected member representing on behalf of the people, there is a proper system in place. Everyone-be it our PM or some Ambani or some Bachchan, all need to adhere to a certain laid down principals of living in a developed society. So where and how does the need to go on a strike or a dharna or quitting the office, arise from?

Today, Mr Kejriwal you are sitting on the chair of a CM and you have all the media attention, so you can very conveniently keep endorsing your ‘good gesture’ of quitting from your post but go and ask a fragile five-year-old child fighting cancer in some hospital, go and ask the athlete participating with a broken limb in this winter Olympics, go and ask a CEO of a company which is suffering losses due to modernization of machinery and low cost goods from China, go and ask the widow of a soldier who has three kids to take care of all on her own-they will tell you that if they QUIT they will die. They will exist no more, if they even dare to quit!

So from next time if you plan to quit from your job if some police officials or jal nigam or bijli vibhag employees are not acting as per your commands then I have a suggestion that you could resume with your previous job, as there is no room for quitters-on the battle field at least! 

- See more at: http://www.theindianrepublic.com/tbp/mr-kejriwal-enough-quit-drama-100026694.html#sthash.w03dpTyM.dpuf

shed anti-industry perception-AAP

Fear of losing young voters makes AAP arrest leftward drift

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) wants to shed the perception that it is anti-industry or private enterprise.

 

AAP’s ‘Economic Agenda’ document declares the party “is neither Left nor Right and will support every good idea, old or new, if it is in the interest of India”.

 

AAP, from the evidence of this document, doesn’t stand for all that many assumed it did. The document says the party believes in encouraging private enterprise, will promote a simple and progressive tax structure, encourage private sector investment in health and education sectors and opposes government dole. 

 

The AAP document says it does not support social security policies that “induce greater dependency” among the poor. It doesn’t specify such policies but terms these as “lip service”. It claims the party believes “the poor are best helped by empowering them with enhanced capability and the means to earn their livelihood with dignity”. It does, however, wants to explore the option of starting food kitchens, that is provide ready to eat food to abjectly poor.

 

The document says the party’s economic vision is “rooted in decentralized good governance, transparency, accountability and equity”. It says AAP will continuously refine its economic model as “it involves a growing cross section of Indians in the policy making process and incorporates evidence based learning”.

 

The party’s key leaders have launched an outreach effort to send across this basic message of AAP being anti-crony capitalism but in favour of economic liberalism. 

 

AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal’s speech at the Confederations of Indian Industries (CII) on Monday in Delhi and chief spokesperson Yogendra Yadav’s interaction with leading industrialists in Mumbai on Thursday were attempts to dispel the perception that AAP was against private enterprise or big business.

 

Key strategist Professor Ajit Jha says the party’s list of Lok Sabha candidates is also an effort to fight the perception that AAP was a party of a particular ideological leaning. “Our aim is to put in motion a process of national renewal and for this we need people from diverse backgrounds to come on a common platform,” says he.

 

AAP’s first list had names of social activist Medha Patkar and former banker Meera Sanyal together while its second list is likely to have names like Adarsh Shastri and Rajmohan Gandhi. Shastri, a grandson of Lal Bahadur Shastri, quit a lucrative job at Apple to join the party. 

 

Rajmohan is the grandson of the Mahatma. Rajmohan’s maternal grandfather C Rajagopalachari was the founder of the Swatantra Party which in the 1950s opposed the Nehruvian socialist model of development. 

 

Interestingly, Patkar had led the movement against Enron power project in mid-1990s in Maharashtra while Sanyal was then with one of the banks helping finance that project.

 

The document’s other key points include a commitment towards job creation and doubling per capita national income in eight years by encouraging honest private enterprise and contain inflation between three to six%. 

 

The document says AAP will aim to increase tax to GDP ratio from 11 to 18% in eight years by enforcing better compliance and increase share of direct taxes to 65%. It is currently at 55%.

Significantly, AAP says it is not against Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) as long as they are fair. It also favours permitting insurance companies, pension and provident funds to finance infrastructure. 

 

AAP’s “Economic Agenda claims the party “believes in an open-minded, solution-driven approach that is not limited by ideological orthodoxies in both domestic and international economic governance.” Jha says 19th or 20th century ideological epithets should not be used to describe the party. He says AAP is in search of people like Jamnalal Bajaj, the industrialist who joined the independence movement as a full time activist, serving jail terms and undertaking fasts. Incidentally, Bajaj’s grandson Rajiv recently said he was a fan of Kejriwal’s.

 

The document is silent on the issue of FDI in retail or on the larger issue of foreign direct investment. However, Shastri told Business Standard a party committee was studying the issue. 

 

He claimed the party was principally “not against investments of any sorts”, whether Indian or foreign, as long as these were good for the country. He said the UPA government’s decision on FDI in retail was taken in haste but the party would “certainly review” its opposition to FDI in retail if on deeper analysis “we feel it is in the larger interest”. 

 

AAP’s economic agenda has job creation as one of its chief agenda. The document says India has over 10 million youth seeking jobs every year. It says AAP will foster enabling honest enterprise across agriculture, manufacturing and services and will be geared towards creating increasing employment and livelihood opportunities.

 

It would seem India’s demographics with a majority of its population below 35-years and AAP’s largely urban electorate base may have compelled the party to undertake a drastic course correction to shed its anti-business and private enterprise image it earned after disallowing FDI in retail in Delhi and batting for water and power subsidies.

 

The vision document says AAP “believes that India needs to evolve a distinctive development model, given the aspirations of India’s citizens and the scale and complexity of its challenges”.

AAP'onomics:

 

Inflation

>> Contain inflation between 3 and 6%; Food inflation below general inflation

Tax

>> Simple, progressive and stable tax structure with lower tax rates and minimal exemptions

>> Tax to GDP ratio from 11 to 18% in eight years; increase share of direct taxes to 65% in eight years

>> Maximum devolution of funds to state and local governments

Trade

>> Review existing bilateral and multilateral agreements to negotiate greater autonomy for India

>> Priorities to bridge the Balance of Payment deficit

Public Distribution System

>>Not pay lip service to social security measures that induce greater dependency

>>Reduce number of BPL households without ration cards or access to PDS close to zero

Agriculture

>> Aim to increase agricultural productivity by 50% in below world standards crops

>> Facilitate formation of commodity co-ops, working along common shareholder principles

Manufacturing

>>Increase share of organized labour in workforce

>>Reduce work-related accidents by 50% within 2 years

Infrastructure

>>Promote PPPs in a fair and transparent manner

Technology

>>Make government 100% IT enabled

>>Install wifi hubs in public spaces in every city/town and village with free access

 

Other agendas :

>>Promote entrepreneurship so that it becomes the new engine for accelerating growth

>>Curb monopolistic and anti-competitive forces

>>Improve India's Ease of Doing Business rank to under 50 within  top 3 in emerging nations by 2022

>> Special focus on tourism with huge potential for growth, employment and investment