Quirky Justice

Image Courtesy:istockphoto.com

The judiciary in India is an interesting institution- it is believed to be an independent body busy in dispensing “justice” to all those who seek fair play. However, if you make even a sketchy comparison between the two high profile prisoners- Dr. Binayak Sen and Mr. Manu Sharma- you will realize that this institution is as murky  as a tank full of squids spewing ink. Allow me to draw your attention towards the treatment meted out to these persons by our esteemed courts and in the bizarre ways in which the entire mechanism of our judicial system works.


Commonality in the cases of Manu Sharma and Dr. Binayak Sen:
 1) Both were awarded life imprisonment and are serving term.
2) Ram Jethmalani has represented Manu Sharma previously and wants to represent Binayak Sen in future.

Mr. Manu Sharma: (born 1977)
•    Son of veteran Congress leader and ex minister of Haryana.
•    An undergraduate who shot Jessica Lall point blank in a celebrity party in April 1999.
•    Real name is Siddharth Vashisht then aged 22 carried firearms quite freely.
•    He was notorious as a pub hopper and a party creature in Delhi’s high flying social circles.
•    This act of (what I can only term as) manslaughter was committed in the full view of 90 odd guests present at the party.
•    Managed to get anticipatory bail and went into hiding to evade being caught.
•     There were some witnesses who later turned hostile- Shayan Munshi being one of them- and many others who feigned ignorance due to various reasons.
•    There was an audio tape with a confession from the accused (evidence recorded during interrogation) which conveniently went missing.
•    The killing happened in April 1999 and the conviction came in December 2006.
•    Manu Sharma was given parole on September 24 2009 for fraudulent reasons.
•    Senior lawyer, Ram Jethmalani, appeared on behalf of Manu Sharma and failed to get him acquitted.

Dr. Binayak Sen: (born 1950)
•    Paediatrician, public health practitioner and activist.
•    Actively involved in dispensing free medical consultation and service to the tribal people of Chhattisgarh.
•    He was awarded the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights in 2008.
•    Sen was arrested on May 14 2007 on charges of “having links with the Naxals” because he made 33 visits to veteran Naxal leader Narayan Sanyal in jail in Raipur. Point to remember here is that each visit in question was supervised by police officers.
•    He was refused bail on grounds of being a threat to the state.

Need I say more?

Dr. Binayak Sen is a “threat to the State” but Manu Sharma, gun totting rowdy with criminal links with politicians in Haryana and Delhi is a picture of rectitude for who it took the same judiciary seven years of toil to build a case. Manu Sharma is freed on parole by none other than the CM of Delhi, Ms. Sheila Dixit and Binayak Sen cannot be given bail for being a threat to the state!

How much more crap are we supposed to take from this corrupt, ineffectual and innocuous government?  How removed from reality can our so called leaders be? Do we deserve to be insulted so and be taken for fools by a bunch of thieving, bribing, amoral politicians? Alas, as the saying goes “you deserve what you get” for are we not the ones who voted these same people to power? It is time for us to don the thinking cap and keep our ears and eyes open and learn to discern right from wrong and what we must take and what we must not.

Where does India's Black Money go?

Image Courtesy: globalresearch.ca

In a recent press release the Finance Minister of India, veteran Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee, said that the government could not 'name and shame' (IE 21.1.11) the high profile people who were siphoning off black money to foreign bank accounts on the pretext that it would be divulging state secret and flouting the security rules of these foreign financial agencies. Fair enough- but where is the problem in following up operations to get the $213 billion worth of siphoned off money back to Indian shores? That the colour of this money is dubious and the exact amount is in the realm of speculation (half a trillion USD according to GFIR) the common tax-paying citizens have a right to know what Mr. Mukherjee's government is doing to redeem this amount.

That an honest, hard-working and responsible citizen like myself has to pay exorbitant rates of tax- income, VAT, education, house, water, road etc etc- to pay off foreign loans and international debts, I demand to know what is happening to this huge sum of money that some 'high net worth individuals' along with corrupt politicians and private "entrepreneurs and self employed, NGOs" have stashed to avoid paying taxes to the Indian government? Shady business practices and scamming clients by using substandard material to build bridges, buildings, and railway accessories not just increases black money but also endangers thousands of innocent lives.

The term HNWI is ironic because what these colossal con artists are doing is milking the poor and the middle-class off their deserved means of livelihood. This has triggered run-away inflation and the government is trying its best to divert our attention from this issue by raking up bogus cases against humanists and people with integrity like Dr. Binayak Sen. In 63 years since independence 38% (a very conservative estimate) of our population is still below poverty line. In other words, an average family of six persons subsists on less that 40 rupees a day when the price of onions is rupees eighty a kilo. Lower middle class families buy chicken claws for three rupees each to add a dash of protein to their meals. Shame! Shame to our political leaders, shame to our HNWIs!

The USA PATRIOT Act, Title III is ripe to be enforced on NRIs who form the core of the private money laundering racket in the US. Most of these transactions have been happening for decades and such individuals who assume that they are safe and above scrutiny, need to be reported to enforcement agencies in an honest attempt to get back all this ill gotten wealth back to our country. The government has a moral right to confiscate this money as taxes that have been evaded for years. The I-Tax department will be only too happy to be able to get some of this money redeemed and add a positive thrust towards reducing extreme poverty in our country. Add to this is the chance to enhance national security by stemming the sponsorship of terrorism through these channels.

The time is right for the tide to turn and Mr. Mukherjee's government will do well to accept some responsibility for ill governance and try and repair some of the losses. Saving the face of corrupt colleagues should not be the primary task of the Manmohan Singh government but all efforts should now be made to ferret out these rats and get back the money to curb the debilitating inflation. The poor tax-payer needs saving as do the millions of people who vote these people to power.

It is an Accursed (ill) Bird that Fouls its Own Nest

Image Courtesy:Theora.com

Vilifying your own family and washing dirty linen in public are deeds not done by self-respecting, decent people. Yet there is a substantial chunk of the world’s population doing just that at the moment. The ones indulging in it have hundreds of hangers- on who will egg them on to make greater fools of themselves. And why will they not? If you are willing to make a spectacle of yourself and your family why will the eggers-on not get full recompense for following you through this muck? After all they are investing time and effort at being your staunch and devoted friends, aren’t they? So the least you can do to repay them is to allow them to have a finger in the pie, so to speak. And sometimes one may strike gold and get some pecuniary benefits from being a hanger-on too. That is  like the proverbial 'icing on the cake' along with the free tamasha.

And then we wonder why there is no peace in the world today? Or why Obama gets the Nobel for Peace?

You don’t need Sten guns and M16As to inflict injury and cause damage to body, mind and soul. Man is equipped with a far more potent weapon that can do these effectively-WORDS. The world today has gone crazy with the pollution created by empty heads and babbling mouths. People are so much in love with the sound of their own voices that it does not matter to them that all they are spouting are ludicrous lies most of which may even sound quite pathetic. What can be more wretched than to have to believe your own lies? There is no peace within these sad, sad folks. 

Fouling other people, even if they happen to be family, is a way to assuage a desperately poor self image. They find solace in digging out the dirt from other peoples’ lives , these malicious people, to keep busy so they don’t have to peep into their own. Be that as it may, it is a self defeating exercise and nothing good can ever come of it. It is also sad that these demented individuals don’t realize sycophants don’t have the welfare of anybody in their hearts. Just like vultures they will crowd round any carcass- today they are on your side of the party- tomorrow they will devour your carcass too.

It is ironic that those who talk the most learn the least. The ones that preach are the ones most in need of their own preaching. We ignore history and never learn from it only to repeat it again and again. A person who cannot feel happy with God’s gift of a family and tries to find homeliness in strange quarters ends up being the loser in both cases. So friends, it is important to remember that we, as individual cogs in the giant wheel of society, need to make adjustments, learn to accommodate, learn to forgive and love our lot to find peace within and without.