A balanced view of the Anna-Lokpal issue ..

I have been swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other about this lokpal issue .While i find the idea of having a body that is independent of executive control to investigate and prosecute the corrupt people very appealing i am consumed by the logic of creating such an institution when we can expand the mandate of a body like CVC and CBI and reform those institutions to incorporate all the powers that are being proposed to be given to the Lokpal .

CVC is supposed to investigate and prosecute corrupt people , but the impediment to this is the powers the politicians and the chief secrataries have to prevent such an investigation from happening . The two preliminary things that need to be done to take this anti-corruption movement to the next level in our country is to remove that immunity that government employees and politicians enjoy and insulate the CBI and CVC by ensuring that the CBI and CVC stays independent the way election commission does .

Certainly Anna is not going to kill himself if the government does not bring the bill as per his wishes . That is a political hyperbole into which the naive people could be scared into . Neither is the Anna team expecting to get everything they seek nor their intentions are dictatorial or to create a super powerful body that is capable of swallowing everyone . This 'Anna is monster' story spread by his political opponents is just a defensive tactic of those politicians in the congress who have realized that Anna has touched the raw nerve and it would be suicidal to slander him . Instead they project him as a dictator . He is neither an inflexible authoritarian nor a delusion ed megalomaniac . He is someone in between who has genuinely good intentions of creating a strong anti corruption body but doesn't have the intellectual rigour to understand the flaws of existing institutions . He has derived his strength from the popular outrage and he thinks only on terms of creating a fresh institution which is independent .

I recall an old chinese proverb which say that 'A solution to a problem could create a new set of problems ' . I feel that Anna's team rided on a wrong and a more complex proposal instead of something that is far more catchy less complex and easily understandable to the people . Had Anna asked for an independent CBI and CVC on the lines of election commission he would not have faced this big a wall to climb . Ultimately Lokpal is going to address the complaints of citizens and have them investigated by the CBI or the CVC , had it been as simple and direct as the demand for the autonomy of CBI and CVC he would not have attracted this kind of flak . Now the entire political community is getting together to plot against Anna to sabotage lokpal . They will never give up the control of CBI or the CVC because that is the real thing . Anna made it easier to firewall him by demanding that CBI be placed under Lokpal . The lokpal which is a group of people(god knows how they will choose them) will be heading the CBI sounds even more precarious to a lot of experts on governance and the CBI itself finds the idea of being supervised by an appointed body even more abhorrent than being supervised by the home minister . That is why the CBI opposed it tooth and nail and the government will fully publicize that view to keep it's control over CBI .

The need of the hour is a constitutional autonomy to CBI and CVC the countries premier investigative bodies . Anna has ruined the soup by failing to understand this basic thing . His idea of moving the control of CBI from the home-ministry to a group of appointed people who are supposed to be independent is nauseating . He gave the government that hole to escape from and the congress party will take that hole to come out of it . I am for the independence of CBI i can never agree to place that under a Lokpal or any group of people . As far as the other demands of the Anna's team is concerned it's better to reform CVC and give it the mandate the Lokpal has instead of creating a whole new bureaucracy ..

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The great war between Socialism and Capitalism

The debate between socialism and capitalism has intensified these days as we brace up to a world wide economic crisis . The nay sayers and the leftists all across the world have asked the governments to expand their size and role in direct economy and curtail the animal instincts of capitalism . I would like to start my arguments by mentioning to them that socialism is relatively a new historical phenomenon and has no traces of existence before Vladmir lenin overturned Russia into a socialist state . The centerpiece of Karl Marx's argument is that inequality is the prime driver of poverty and the pursuit of equality in all forms whether it is economical , political and social is desired and should be enforced on the society forcefully . Equality was the justification for the unparalleled crimes committed by the communists against humanity all across the world . I do not intend to reel the numbers today as i have done on numerous other occassions but socialism and communism has got a chance to prove themselves in our world and they failed miserably . Russia was the country that sustained communism for long but eventually socialism could not sustain even in Russia and the pursuit of equality has shattered societies irreparably in Russia .

But the big question today is Is inequality the prime reason for the poverty in our country or reason at all for any poverty in this country . Is capitalism driving people into worser poverty or alleviating them from poverty ? Are Indian poor better off in the pre-1990's socialistic Indian than they are now ? What role does politics and governance play in alleviating poverty ? Who is the real culprit of our human development problems governance or capitalism ?

The favourite socialist slogan is 'Inequality is the prime driver of poverty in any society' . Jawaharlal Nehru bought this argument and he ensured that India does not have too many rich people . He did this by preventing enterpreneurs from entering into most of the sectors of Indian economy , he monopalised most of the sectors by government run PSU's and that was communism minus autocracy . The inequality in Nehruvian indian was very less . There are very few rich people only enough rich that the government and Nehru could be comfortable with . He hated money and he prevented a system that would allow people to make money for themselves . That socialistic equality pursuing system lasted till 1991 till P.V Narsimha Rao took over . P.V has realized that the pursuit of equality has led the country to the edge of the cliff . Who should take responsibility for the fact that we were on the verge of bankruptcy in 1991 . Which leaders and which political and economic systems should be held responsible for our situation in 1991 ? can we ever forget the humiliation that we had to mortage our gold for just 500 crore rupees ? Now it's time for the capitalists to answer why socialism in India failed because we promise a better system a system that's based on freedom , liberty and pursuit of happiness .

Selfishness is the natural law under which a human being functions . There are people who have an intellectual need , there are some who would like to be rich and there are some who would want to be famous but it is this selfishness which drives the man to think and to redefine himself to achieve his life's goal . A life which is not free to be excited by some desire and pursue that desire is not a life at all . A life that cannot purse intellectually , emotionally and philosophically what it desires is not worth living .Socialism takes the freedom away takes the life away from the human being . It asks for a mechanical pursuit of life without any desire and goal for oneself and if at all a man has a goal it should be for the larger interest of society .This idea of living for the society has destroyed men , took the life away from him .

Why did the government run PSU's fail despite being a monopoly ? Why did they become such a drag on economy despite being the only companies to operate in that space ? That is because no body's head is in the line of fire . Neither the politicians who appoint the managers to these PSU's nor the managers themselves lose anything if those PSU's fail , their head is not in the line of fire . In one simple line those companies are not theirs . This 'head in the line of fire' makes all the difference , this is why capitalism succeeds and socialism fails . Praful patel lead AirIndia for 5 years .He lead AirIndia into that bottom less pitt and now when he failed Air India he is moved to other ministry . In the last 10 years the government of India has pumped in 16000 crores into that bottomless pitt called AirIndia . Now it is going to pour more money into AirIndia . Nobody in our socialist government for one moment has the guts to ask why is the government running an airline company ? What is the necessity for the government to pour valuable tax payers money into that drain ? MTNL is next in line for government assistance . It is incomprehensible why government wants to run these companies at a huge loss to exchequer . If poverty alleviation is all we are concerned about Infrastructure should be our top priority . If our government stops saving those sick units and instead push that money into infrastructure we would be a far better country .

Is the government more efficient or private corporations more efficient with the capital ? If we put the same amount of capital into the hands of government and a private enterpreneur it's historically proven that the enterpreneur extracts more efficiency from the capital , that capital at the disposal of enterpreneur has created sustainable economic systems and consequently jobs . The same capital in the hands of governement has depleted . The government goes for job creation without looking at the sustainability and viability and the systems and PSU's government create later on become a drag on the government . West bengal is 2nd largest industrialised state in 1967 . After 3 decades of socialism today it stands somewhere in the last 5 . Enterpreneurs have been portrayed as blood thirsty people and were the condemned class . If an enterpreneur wants to create a profit making self-sustaining company he was considered selfish money-minded and ethical . And all those people who would just talk and do nothing are the ethical unselfish good intentioned people .Today west bengal has an unsustainable debt of 2 lakh crores .Who should be blamed for the deindustrialization of west bengal ?

Even in empirical terms the capital put at the disposal of enterpreneurs created more jobs and contributed to the state in the form of taxes but the capital at the disposal of state has become a drag on the state consuming huge amounts of tax payers money which could be utilized for addressing the real issues . The enterpreneurs create wealth not just for themselves but for the people all around them , they create jobs and sustainable economic structures .Today we have the muscle to deal with our problems . Our country did not have the resources to deal with our problems before 1990 . Had we continued with that socialism we might have become a bankrupt and failed country by now . So now the question is why are we a poor country despite having 20 years of free enterprise . The first and the foremost reason for that question is governance . The government has got it's priorities wrong , instead of concentrating on Infrastructure , Healthcare and education it has used the new found revenues to splurge no more useless social spending in the form of freebies . The huge economic problems of our country the unprecedented inflation is a direct consequence of the poor management of public finances by the government and unprecedented scale of corruption and plunder by the congress politicians . We are surviving as a country despite poor governance and high corruption only because we were gifted free enterprise by P.V Narisimha Rao . Without those reforms i dont know what might have happened to this country . P.V Narisimha rao is India's Abraham Lincoln . Hail the leader , Jai Hind !!!!!

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