Fear, anguish and terror shake us up

Bomb blasts which went off today in our IT city, Bangalore.Terror shook us all up. When terror strikes in our cities in guise of bombs in public places, it fills us(citizens) with anguish. Some of our elected elite make this anguish into political capital. Our politicians play the ”blame game” This bomb went off “near the office of this party”, so it is the opposition who planted this. The media would immediately blame on the religious group which propagates terror. This would give direction to the public anger. The true sufferers are the victims who were rushed to the hospital. Their pain would not be heard. Neither media nor the leaders act concerned. Disaster management is poor and victims get medical help late, although medical care was given. Media wants a story and it swung into action. Care for the victim is more important than gathering  news.  This is sad. As this shows how much unorganised, emergency services are. If we want to call ourselves a developed nation, we must care for our citizens. Neither economic power nor military prowess determines our status in the comity of nations; but our care and sympathy for our citizens determines our status. Our spirit is not harmed by violent attacks and we carry on with our daily lives peacefully.

How to become stronger

To keep peace, we need to build our army and increase our defence equipments. Although we do not want war, we have to arm ourselves, so that our interests are protected. If we do not have strong defence forces, we would be taken for granted. Strong neighbouring countries would not respect our borders and would take over our lands. May be stronger nations in our borders would dam our rivers and deprive us of our natural resources. We share aquifers with our neighbours and they may siphon our ground water and make our lands dry.It is for these reasons for which we need to protect ourselves and build our armed forces. We can spend more on our welfare schemes and education policy, but instead we spend on our defence facilities. We had planned expenditure of Rupees 193407 crores in the year 2012-13; and for 2013-14, we will spend 203672 crores. As the percentage of our national expenditure, expenditure is lower. How we spend our allocated resource is important. The actual expenditures always surpass the recommended limits. If the ministry of defence reprioritises the expenditures, we will fare better. We must rework our bureaucracies of army, navy and air force units. We need to reduce manpower and increase skilled engineers as military surveillance is modernised now. We must spend more on research so that we can manufacture our own defence equipments without buying from outside the country. Tactical Communication Systems can be made better with innovations. Having better technology is better than having more men; by this logic, we must make our defence sector stronger. We must protect our country and its resources by spending on defence. And to avoid war we must let our neighbours know that we are very very strong.

We are a great nation

Increased connectivity has caused a big spurt of growth in India. It is fast becoming a global power for it has all resources needed for development. What level of development we have depends on how we see it. Our nation has become “risk society” approaching post modernism. Many nations develop their military force to increase their clout. India has command as democracy bringing industrialisation to a predominantly agricultural economy. We have the largest number educated persons. That is a big achievement. Because conditions was always present in India to produce largest educated population.  That is itself a big success and nobody can measure that. We know that we have the will to learn and we will succeed. Increased computerisation has brought together the students in the universities who are linked by "Knowledge Network". Increased use of mobiles has boosted our economic sector bringing vast increase in communications. Potentials are immense---how we can grow with the present level of technology. Computerisation of various government organisations have brought them together as they communicate by emails. People have more connection with the government: everyone has a PAN card, Aadhar identity and better access to information .Social security schemes for free food or loans for education or loans for starting a small firm is now easily possible. Government can function better with increased computerisation. For example we have land records which are computerised and can be accessed by municipalities. We can pay our electricity bills our income taxes and our property tax by "on line"facility. It is now that we have become a well connected nation. Diverse opinions and political climate do keep murmuring and this only reflects that we are a vibrant democracy with constant debates and conflicts. We are a fine example for all developing nations. We can bring development to other developing nations as Indians teach as easily as they learn. We do not have a military strategy to become a super power but we believer in the ‘will power’ of the Indian people who will do well in future Earth.

Ever-present Student Unrest

 It is the police who are creating fear, hatred, and despair. Environment of contentment is just not present. Peaceful living is not possible when we see despair all around us. A student was killed while he was protesting in the state of West Bengal. And the reason for his death is given as “accidentally dashed his head against a lamp post” But it was police brutality which had killed him. There is much behind all this as the student was protesting against the ruling political party. This episode makes a mockery of our democracy.  Police are listening to their political overlords. Why should politics enter college campuses? Students must be keep themselves with studies and not enter politics. Police brutality is never questioned. Why? Too many powers are given to the politician who orders the police. Politicians are not concentrating on improving our economy, but causing such heinous events. Speeches on economy are meaningless when the reality is dreadful. Can we really improve the conditions of the people?

Costs of health--top priority

For our apex court, the needs of the average citizen are primary. The Swiss pharma company which tried to win patent protection for its cancer drug “Glivec” could not. So the cancer patients can afford to buy the drug. This drug was used to treat chronic myeloid leukaemia and it costs Rupees 150000 while its generic equivalent costs only Rupees 9600. Now we are recommending less costly generic versions and thereby making essential drugs affordable for the average citizen. This is a big achievement for the people who have been a fighting a war against pharma industries to “evergreen” its patents to make big profits. The pharma lobby wants to make profits at the cost of the people and wants to call it minor changes in the original drugs as “innovations”; and it wants Patents Act to support its multimillion dollar domain. If allowed to make its own patent the rich pharma companies will not allow small companies from making much cheaper generic versions. But our Supreme Court recognises this; it wants to give people less costly drugs so that they can afford to buy it. It is with this view that the case of the Swiss company was seen, and the company’s plea for patent was rejected promptly.   

India is demonstrating that affordability of drugs is urgent for basic health for common people. We must keep in mind that health of the people is most important. We are able to resist 'lobbyism' tactics of multimillion pharma companies while framing our policies.

Landmark Decision for Protecting Environment

A giant step was taken to protect environment when the Supreme Court gave its judgement ordering a fine of one hundred crores Rupees as compensation for environmental pollution caused by a copper smelting plant in India’s southernmost tip. The lower court had given orders to close the plant, but the big fine was awarded by the Supreme Court  so that it acts as a deterrent. The principle that the “polluter pays” is upheld, and this is an important landmark judgement. The plant was not ordered to closed down as it would mean loss of livelihood to 1300 persons working in it. Within three months, the privately owned plant will have to pay the fine. One hundred crores would be deposited in bank as fine( paid to state's pollution control board)and its interest would be used to combat ravages caused by pollution.

Three days ago there was another gas leak at the same plant. The state government is about to take measures to stop it; and Supreme Court has given the state’s pollution control board permission to take action against the plant. The plant had a two million tonne a year capacity, but that does not negate the fact it was causing much much pollution to the entire coastal area. Only the 'fine' of one hundred crore Rupees is not the end. There will be more 'fines' slapped as per violation of “green laws” This is just the start. By these measures, we will be able to keep a check on those polluting industries which care least for environment while making huge profits.Facories must be able to send out clean water as they emit waste water into the sea or river.They should be held responsible for any pollution they cause, and the health of the water body should be measured constantly.

Aspirations of developing nations

The idea behind meeting of developing nations is that they will be able to help each other. When we depend on Western countries for trade and commerce, we have a feeling that we will be exploited. There cannot be equal relations between uneven partners. So when egalitarian forces are involved in progress and technological transfers, there will be no exploitation; this is the reason we make friends with countries like ourselves. BRICS is an outcome of that feeling. But all the developing countries are having problems internal functioning. They have yet to overcome their domestic economic exigencies. Global trade is not easy as we have no ways to expand. In the previous centuries, overseas colonies gave space to expand economies. Now there is an end to that trend. We have challenges which are different from the rest. We have to import oil, and we are importing at a cheaper price than before. But same exigencies are not faced by others have other import-export troubles. We have competition from our immediate neighbours who can easily outgrow us; this is a threat to our growth. All of us have some common problems like, we have worry about leaderships.
 The strongest (China) is bigger in having the largest monetary resources. So it would be able to contribute more to the bank (BRICS development Bank). Questions arise on 'who will invest' and 'how much'.Instead of meeting once a year, members can meet twice a year. Not just leaders but the finance ministers of all countries can meet, foreign ministers can meet and bureaucrats can meet to teach each other. Business councils can meet more often. There will be a special “think tank” to discuss common issues on development. We must know how to deal with international monetary and financial systems (recession, global slow-down etc). We must discuss global issues and we have to set up an integrated market for trade and investment, so that we can all do well. We must make business links. Cooperation can work wonders for us. We must discuss macro-economic issues, so that we can develop ourselves fast.Each of have our unique exigencies and very very  different needs, but all are determined to progress. Instead of having a bleak view “where are we heading towards” we must have a positive outlook and we must take concrete steps to progress.