Issues facing our country

Something or the other happens so often in our country. Every such time we make so much noise, sometimes give ourselves a false impression that things are changing and we've started to care, but each time, it does not last long enough :( and time always wins. So I've decided to collect all those events which shook us for a while, and we came back to our normal selves :( Here's a small list of long pending issues, incidents and accidents facing our country :-

1. Attack on the Parliament of India.
   
2. Godhra train carnage, 2002
3. The following Gujrat riots, 2002
4. Bihari students appearing in railway exams attacked by Shiv sena, led by Raj Thackray who was then in Sena., 2005
5. Serial blasts in Mumbai, 2005 (or was it 2006?) - [at the Gateway, near Mumba devi temple, ghatkopar, etc...]
6. Serial blasts in New Delhi on the eve of Diwali, 2005 - [in crowded market places of rohini, and...]
7. Hundreds of north Indian laborers killed in militant attacks in Assam, 2006
8. Serial blasts in Hyderabad, 2007 - [near a Masjid, in a park]
9. Serial blasts in UP, 2006
   
10. Serial blasts in Mumbai local trains, 2007.
11. Blasts in Malegaon, Maharashtra, 2007 - [near the gate of a Masjid]
12. Major violence in Nandigram, West Bengal. - (thats riots between supporters of two political parties!! The police violating all human rights to suppress the anti)
13. Serial blasts in Jaipur, 2008. - [in crowded market places, near Hawamahal]
14. Serial blasts in Ahmedabad, 2008. - [in buses, busy markets, Hospitals...]
15. Serial blasts in Delhi, 2008 - [the posh Kannaught place, busy markets]
16. Currency notes worth crores of rupees flown in on the floor of Indian parliament.
17. The whole state of Jammu and Kashmir burns (in several phases - first Kashmir, then Jammu, then Kashmir again) over the issue of Land allocated to sri Amarnath shrine board.
18. Massive anti-national protests followed in Kashmir.
19. Blasts in Malegaon, 2008 - [a few hundred meters from the site of previous blasts]
20. Attacks carried out on several churches in Mangalore, 2008.
    
21. Swami Lakshmanananda, a Hindu priest is killed, Kandhamal, Orissa, 2008.
22. Attacks carried out on Christian localities, following the killing of Swami, in Kandhamal. ( a nun raped, a priest beaten in public, many left homeless)
    
23. Serial blasts in Tripura, 2008....... (I'm sure very few of us know about it!)
    
24. A major violent hate campaign started against the north Indians in Maharashtra (especially Mumbai) - (major loss of property, human life, Thousands of immigrants forced to leave Maharashtra) - 2008
    
25. protesting the above, a 23 year old Bihar boy, carrying a pistol, tries to hijack a BEST bus in Mumbai - and is shot down by the police. No human rights activists come forward to say a word.. In this country, human rights are reserved only for the terrorists and the rioters.
    
26. Serial blasts all over Assam - 2008 [ in several towns of Assam - Guwahati, kokrajhar, barpeta, kamrup ]
27. The most scary and unfortunate terrorist attacks ever, in Mumbai, 2008. They went inside the Taj Hotel, opening fire on an elite, unprotected crowd! the city was held on ransom for 3 days!
    

These are all the (man made) incidents/accidents/issues which I could remember for now (the dates could be wrong, as I've put whatever I had in my mind, correct them). of course, the list would be longer, please add anything I missed....

Other issues which need to be debated and laws must be made regarding them :-

1. Population - strengthen the laws to promote family planning.
2. Bring some laws to stop the "Mob violence"
3. Caste based reservations in educational institutes, Jobs, etc..
4. The naxal issue. The fast bloating red-belt essentially plaguing the country, needs to be curbed effectively,
   
5. Media should be made more responsible.
6. Act hard on those making anti-national speeches, or otherwise breaking the integrity of the nation.
   
   
   
   Hope to see a better India in future..
   
   Jai Hind
   

A small analysis of elections 2009.

I'll analyze the election results here (just mention here what you already know) :-)

Overall, the people's mandate is for the Manmohan Singh's government and essentially for the Congress party which has put up its best performance after 1984's tornado. And its goodbye Advani- in fact the BJP has gone down with Mr Advani putting up its worst performance since the rise of Advani on-the-rath!

Well 2009, somewhat like 2004 was fought on a "state basis" (you know all the states going to polls rather than the country).. But yes, many of the states did vote to rout the destabilizing jokers and of course, the personality war was also there. So we'll see some of the states which mattered this time :

The revolutionary states :-
*) Jammu n Kashmir : As a victory of Indian democracy, one of the separatist hurriyat leaders - Sajjad lone contested the Parliamentary elections! and the other two extremist parties : PDP and BJP were rejected by the people :-)

*) West Bengal : The decades old dream of Mamata Bannerjee finally comes true - the "Red" Fort is breached.. The worst performance of the Left in 4 decades : and it was not only the Singur farmer, even the Kolkata's urban youth came out in support of the "more national" alliance.. Beginning of an end for the Left....? Hope so :-) (Kerala was a little expected, and left losing there is no surprise)

*) Tamilnadu : The ever-swinging pendulum has refused to swing without no reason : so the opposition cannot "assume" victory anymore. And for all good reasons (I guess) that the people of Tamilnadu have refused (certainly reduced) the support to LTTE and those who mobilized the voters in its name. Leave alone the others, even Vaiko is defeated! and he's defeated when the biggest crackdown ever on the LTTE is on!! Its a certain end to the LTTE and lets hope that the Lankan Tamils will also get back to mainstream now..
So the revolutionary vote is 'for' the state's and centre's pro-poor policies! (the Televisions have worked it seems).

*) Uttar Pradesh : While it is still unfortunate that the BJP has done so miserably there, it was really great to see the other national party - INC to revive so fantastically that they are the no 2 party in the state! Seems that the Rahul factor has really turned the tables in UP! Good to see both Mulayam and Mayavati losing their voices in the national politics, perhaps a few more seats to the BJP (from these 2 spoilsports) and it would've been perfect :-)
So the revolution is in the marginalization of the 'local forces' and the revival of the congress..

The X-Factors :-
*) Vijayakanth : Came as a rescue for Mr Karunanidhi in Tamilnadu where a clean sweep was expected, but as it turns out the DMK-Cong alliance has actually exceeded its 2004's performance! So yes, there was a little indirect help of Vijayakanth for the UPA in Tamilnadu. (Hoping to see something happening in Tamilnadu which will mark an end of Both DMK & AIADMK :-)

*) Chiranjeevi : Again, an actor's debut in politics helps the Congress! Real similar to the Vijayakanth factor in Tamilnadu, the Anti-incumbant vote in Andhra Pradesh was stolen by Chiranjeevi.. of course, he also took away the votes of TDP and has emerged as a strong force.

*) Raj Thackray : The real spoilsport for BJP-Shivsena alliance in Maharashtra.. He took away significant amount of votes from the saffron alliance, also re-uniting the non-marathi votes which went for the Congress party.

Although these X-factors were very much responsible for the victory of the congress, Its really unfortunate to see these smaller forces being given the support!

The positives of the result :-
*) A clear mandate : For the congress party (206), more than the UPA, so no more bargains, no more threats to the stability, no more blockades of decisions at the center.. We can see a smooth sailing in Delhi :-)

*) Rise of the national parties at the cost of regional ones : Like it or not, but the likes of CB Naidu, Jayalalitha, Deve Gowda, Sharad Pawar, Mulayam, Mayavati, Lalu, paswan, and other jokers alongwith the anti-progress left have been rejected. Ironically, the people who were till yesterday dreaming of forming a government! are now lining up at 10 Janpath to Beg the congress for making them a part of the government..!!
Unfortunately, the undecidability of what kind of politics the BJP would follow, has really cost them dearly... Putting Modi as a future PM candidate obviously didn't work in Gujarat (Cong - 10, BJP - 16) and actually backfired badly in other states. An image correction and working towards the pan Indian politics is the need of the hour for them.. Lets hope sense prevails in that camp.

*) Rejection of the divisive politics : As the Gujarat results show, and more importantly the results of Uttar Pradesh, that the Hate speeches are not the way to win anymore.. Yes, you can mobilize a small section and win that particular seat, but then you will probably need to go speak like this everywhere to win the majority.. And that too will fade away with time.. Its not a permanent way of polity......


The worrying factors :-
*) Karnataka has continued to support the party which actually tarnished the secular image of the state (In Mangalore....). May be now, we'll see more such unfortunate incidents! And another side-effect of this is that there will be lesser number of ministers from the state (I mean u didn't even let Bangarappa win! and no seats in bangalore - so just forget about the ministries), and a possible alienation from the center :-(

*) Similar situations are there in my state of Bihar, and the state of Orissa, where people did the mistake of voting for the state governments in Lok Sabha elections! I mean what good will the MP's of BJD or the JDU will do in the parliament? Okay, they've done a good job in the state, so take them to power in the state again, but sending them to delhi is not the best of ideas!