Price Hike of fuel

The has been a lot of hue and cry over government's proposal to raise the prices of the petrol and petro products, demands have been made to cut the import and excise duty on the imported products. We need to let the market forces balance themselves, other wise the Oil prices will continue to soar. A lions share of the Oil demand is attributed to the demand of petroleum for personal modes of transport of the people.These consumers mainly hail from the higher and the middle class which are not hand-to-mouth and a hike in the price of petrol will not devastate them but only coerce them to use the fuel more efficiently. If the government continues to subsidize oil , with personal vehicles becoming more and more affordable and within the reach of the common man, the demand for petroleum is bound to sky-rocket , resulting in even further increase in the prices in the long run. Hence the government should allow the market forces to curtail the increasing demand. Simultaneously the government should promote other oil-efficient and cheap means of public transport, the money that is being directed towards subsidies and in bailing out the OMCs should be spent on improving the availability and the standards public transport on lines of European countries, such investment will commensurate in the long run. Also the government should promote people to take up healthy transport practices like car pooling.

Disorting the Truth

Just a glimpse of the fact that how a different color is given to an incident.

A story by times of India

TOI Story

A different perspective of the story from indianmuslims.com

IndianMuslims Story

How pathetically the story has been transformed into a communal one.

And about this second source ..just have a look at the authors of the
second website, they are no orthodox clerics or imams..they are learned
international journalists. The site describes Adnan Alawi (The writer
of this article) as

"Adnan Alavi: An engineer turned journalist, Adnan has been blogging
about Indian Muslims at his blog, Indscribe. He lives in a city in
Central India and works for a major newspaper."

The Writer Adnan Alawi has written a number of articles for a number
of leading websites. If such learned people breed such hatred how do we ever plan to
achieve harmony and peaceful coexistence.

Commendable move but condemnable response

The exemplary move by Hon'ble Governor of WB Mr. GopalKrishna Gandhi to observe voluntary power cut at his residence in Kolkata is indeed laudable. In an era of today where authorities enjoy a lavish life style insulated from the problem faced by the common masses, the move underscored the responsibility of our leaders as citizens. The move should serve as inspiration for common people to save electricity so that the benefits can trickle down to the not-so-privileged sections. Instead of appreciating the effort Mr Chandrashekhar responded sarcastically to the whole effort. The leasers need to realize that there are some matters of public concern in which they have to rise over their personal and partisan differences and not defile just any action.

Ramar Sethu Issue

Its nice to be secular, its nice to be empathetic but we need to strike a balance. Time and again the interests and sentiments of the Hindus have been undermined just to show that how secular and how minority appeasing we are eg: whenever there is a riot only the minority killings are brought to the front page, don't Hindu people also die in the riots. In situations where Hindus and the minorities suffer alike the specific incidents in which a member of any minority is oppressed is surfaced to show how much we care for the minorities,regardless of the communal sentiments that such biased treatments arise . Bilkis Bano was another such incidence of skewed portrayal, had Bikis Bano been a Hindu would she have got speedy justice given the current jam packed state of Indian judiciary ? Then why was the whole case projected as a case of delayed justice to a Muslim.

Ramar Sethu is another incident, Justice Parasarans drawing of a parallel between Babri Masjid and Ramar Sethu was absolutely appropriate. With the faith of 800 Million Hindus attached doesn't it become a symbol of Hindu religion. The media is silent over it. I can bet on it that had it been the case od a Muslim place of worship being mutilated , the newspapers would have been flooded with articles like " We do not need another Babri Masjid ?". If that holds for Muslims then why not for Hindus.
I have no grudge again any community but the point is that just to prove our open mindedness and to bring the minorities at par with the majorities we should not put the majorities at a disadvantage. They have equally respectable and honorable faith and sentiments.

Unrelenting Inflation

Posted: To THE HINDU on 6 May 2008

There has been a lot of clamor over the rising prices of the food products especially the skyrocketing imports and a lot of methods have been proposed like Food Procurement, banning of futures trading, but all these happen to be short term measures. The leaders have to come to terms with the fact that ultimately there is no alternative to self sufficiency in food crop production. And it is crystal clear that there are no detours to it. The government has to harness Indias resources to rein in inflation in the long run. Promotion has to be given to Food Crop cultvation over Bio-Fuels and cash crops again this wont happen in a month, farmers need to be given real long term incentives not mere pre-election sops. Strong impetus must be laid on bringing unirrigated land under irrigation, if not by constructig new dams then by atleast consummating the "hung projects". Consider the example of the Telangana region. The region is supposed to one of the most fertile regions but is unused due to improper irrigation facilities. Telangana has numerous projects that could have changed the fate of the region but are just not operational eg : BHIMA , KALWAKURTHY, NETTAMPAD,SLBC TUNNEL CANAL,NAGARJUSAGAR TAIL POND on river Krishna and YELLAMPALLI,DEVADULA,DUMMUGUDEM,LENDI,GUPTA,ALISAGAR,PRANAHITA,LOWER PENUGANGA on river Godavari. Had these projects been fructified we would have been in a much more cushioned state. Similar is the plight of regions like Bundelkhand,Vidarbha.

Judges and RT

The article by Justice Iyer rightly pointed out that judges do fall under the purview the much debated "Right To Information Act" and indeed the CJI can not claim himself free from the obligation. However certain restraints,exploring and patching all possibilities of misuse, must be penned down before RTI in judicial matters is legitimized officially. Proper care must be taken so that the people indeed emerge out as beneficiaries of the whole endeavor. For eg: RTI should only be applicable to people directly concerned to a case and not some Tom Dick and Harry which may lead to untraceable Witness-Threatening.