What defines the nation now?!...

"A nine billion dollar man. India's fourth richest, ideally should be booked under a terror act, swindler, money launderer, known to be cover for some powerful men and who owes the exchequer about 50000 crore rupees, amuses the bench in court where he demands an English style pot to dump in because he is not used to an Indian one."

"A 32 year old Chartered Accountant and guest lecturer pushes two children over the ledge from the nineteenth floor of her building before she plunges to her own death".

And, "A 20 year old college student shot dead in broad daylight", are the headlines that consume print and electronic space for today, not to mention, the news of entertainment, that buffers the impact and causes an amnesia which, as a matter of fact, is the miraculous escape from reality that keeps India going with a smattering of nonsense about Katrina Kaif ignoring Kareena Kapoor at a function and Vidya Balan being pissed off because a picture has been morphed to reveal her wearing a bikini on the cover of a magazine.

That the DMK and Congress have resolved their issues despite the sword of 2G hanging on their heads is passe, and a dark goggled lump of flesh sitting on a luxury car seat on wheels being pushed by an aide, fearless of law catching up with him, is the one who calls all the shots in Tamil Nadu where elections are taking over to bury the real thing, leaves only one question to be answered and that is, where is the country headed to?!!

Even the rest of the world's media and news for now is focused on Libya and the disaster taking place there because of a civil war which threatens to change contours of land besides the air space, however, not without a tiny obsure piece on Maoists and insurgency in India on BBC, which I chanced upon late last night, which was frightening as it was being shown to the world as the real threat which India faces.
The BBC reporter was on his 34th day of travel in the forests with a battallion of Maoists who move from place to place everyday in the heart of India, ironically, so they are not tracked by law enforcers who are somehow always unable to find them, more often than not losing lives of a few good and innocent men in failed attempts.
Strangely, no Indian journalists or activists have either had the mandate or the courage to go and explore this reality in the same way as foreign reporters do, and those writers and activists who have acted out of concern on their own accord, are booked under cases of sedition or imprisoned for treason.

Is the country being run by men and women on ACID or what?

Are people and diverse cultures no longer what drives governance in our country now, and is it power, money and the achievment of the luxury of being in politics, that defines us today?
From Kirron Kher to Smriti Mishra Irani, from Hema Malini, Javed Akhtar to Shabana Azmi, everybody is headed for a life of power, in the politics of protection.

Take a pause and think!
Every economist, concerned with reform for a more equitable existence in the nation, needs to stop and do that.

If the government of India can be held to ransom by a man who has alledged terror links, who is also known to have connections with Adnan Kashoggi, the famous arms dealer, so much so that, the highest and most powerful office is afraid to book him and is trying every which way to let him go, hold it, then it's true that we are being governed by the Mafia?
Yes it is true!

I don't believe India where fragmentation of power is taking place much faster than the emergence of a federal system is in any position to join the ranks of the developed world on the basis of simply revealing its upper crust and strategically concealing the dregs which lie beneath the surface that yell poverty, hunger, malnutrition, discrimination, corruption, gender inequality, lawlessness, illiteracy, disease and the waste of garbage which is unmanageable by municipal corporations in every existing city, town and village.
Forget about the lack of infrastructure which we have to live with all our lives waiting for it to be built while land sharks and builders make money in every which way that connects them to the network of power.

I shudder to think of what I suspect and that is the fact that we're next on the list after the revolutions which are taking place in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and the rest of the Arab world at present, because the region is waiting to explode and a time bomb ticking away is coming close to letting go.

Where a 20 year old can be shot a few meters away from her college campus in front of a hundred eye witnesses and the killer can escape and disappear into a crowd...

Where a woman can take her life along with her two little children because the abyss that defenceless educated and so called empowered common people in this nation are plunged into for no fault of theirs, shows no end or light... 

And where a powerful man can take the country for a ride in broad daylight while the Government shamelessly and blatantly carries on building alliances with a party which is under the judicial and public scanner for gross misuse of power and unforgivable corruption... there is no hope and only the dark.