Belated Happy Republic Day !

Last week we celebrated 64th Republic Day. I was wondering through out this week that what was so new about this 'Republic Day', in fact we have been doing this exercise for last six odd decades, I mean what is so new about this time?
Like any other Indian I obviously felt proud to see our military, cultural, historic, democratic heritage and achievement on Rajpath. But that was just momentary, because this is the same Rajpath which a month back was closed for citizens, it is the same Rajpath where citizens of this Republic were beaten up for holding a demonstration to enact strong laws for rape and other sexual assault on women.

We have 'showcased' a missile which could strike at targets ranging from 3500 to around 5000 Kilometers, sounds great but for me that hardly matters because I suspect if in my lifetime I could see the utility of that missile. What I see day in day out is humiliation by our neighbor. How can I forget that one of my our soldier's head was beheaded by them. What did we do? Nothing, absolutely nothing. If a nation doesn't feel agitated when its solder's body comes home without head, do you expect such nation to ever use a missile. Absolutely not, never. I just don't understand what is the use of showing Agni's almighty on this road of concrete.

Thats about military, now tell me what cultural heritage we are proud of ? For the sake of vote bank politics, and appeasement on the basis of religion and caste our entire socio-cultural fabric has been put at risk of collapse.

I would say that democracy is at his worst in this country, we can only compete with Pakistan or some countries in Africa. Our political parties actually don't understand what democracy is all about. Infact, allmost all national/regional parties are like family run businesses. Electoral process as rightly described by Anna Hazare ji is trapped in the vicious cycle of  'satta se paisa aur paise se satta'.

After more than six decades of becoming a Republic, we dont have a strong and more importantly independent anti-corruption agency. Police reforms are being delayed for so many years. Cases pending before judiciary are around 3 crores or probably more than that, where is the philosophy of 'justice delayed is justice denied' has gone?

Education and health system are inefficient, inapt and overcrowded. If we look at some of our health indicators, neighboring countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh may perform better than us.
We are a nation of 125 crore people, guess what was our medal tally in Olympics? There are heads of our sports bodies who are leading sports federations and association un-successfully for 2-3 decades and there is zero accountability. Height !

There are successive governments ruling states and country for more than one term, if you tell me one single government which've got a vision for say 2020 or for 2030 I 'll be glad. We don't think for that long, all our actions are reactive rather than proactive.

List is endless but tell me one more thing, what is this concept of calling this country 'India' in English and 'Bharat' in Hindi, What should it be called in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kashmiri, Marathi, Assamese etc. Stop this non sense.

Tell me one thing on which I should feel proud of, until then I am not proud of being an Indian and once again A very happy (belated) republic day!

Letter written to Supreme Court

From:	Yogesh Yadav (…..@outlook.com)
Sent:	21 December 2012 09:07AM
To:	supremecourt@nic.in (supremecourt@nic.in)

Dear Sir,

I understand that as per the constitutional mandate given to honourable court, there are certain matters which may not come under its direct purview. It is highly possible that in these matters legislature would frame and amend laws as and when the need arises. But the issue of rape, in my limited knowledge is related to women’s life and dignity hence directly affects their Right against exploitation. 

With so much debate and null result, steps taken by legislature and bureaucracy to handle rape cases don’t seems to be apt as they all are reactive and for a specific place, time, event etc.  If find well within its constitutional mandate and with due consultation with all stakeholders, honourable court may frame certain guidelines to be followed, so that timely and appropriate justice can be done in these cases. 

Still if this matter doesn’t belong to court’s consideration, I apologize for taking away honourable court’s precious time.

Thanks & Regards,

Yogesh

---

From: …..@outlook.com
To: supremecourt@nic.in
Subject: Subject: Judicial process for rape victims
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 23:58:49 +0530

To

The Registrar,

Supreme Court of India,

New Delhi-110 001

Subject: Judicial process for rape victims

Honourable Sir,

                I would like to bring to your kind notice an issue which is much debated in public and legislative domain. A recent unfortunate and inhumane incident of 16^th December where a 23 year old girl was raped and brutally beaten up with her male friend in a moving bus has prompted me to write this letter to you. As I said this issue of punishing culprits in these kinds of heinous crimes has already been discussed and debated so much, hence it is now a high time that we finally decide and prepare guidelines to be followed for the entire investigation and justice system in rape cases across India.

Last year’s (National Crime Records Bureau - 2011) figures about rape cases are shocking; registered cases in Delhi were around 568 which factually mean three females are raped in every two days. Madhya Pradesh reported more than 15,000 rape cases, I am sure there were many unreported cases as well. I am not a law student but someone who is at the bottom of the social pyramid and feel agitated when after 65 years of independence we have not been able to create a system of fast track courts to give justice to the victims of a crime which is even harsher than murder.

My humble request to the honorable court is to kindly pay attention and intervene in this matter on the same lines the honourable court intervene in matters related to environment, dalits, tribals etc. It would set the ball rolling if honourable court asks for opinions from central government, human rights commission and other stakeholders regarding the punishment and time frame to complete the investigation and trials in such cases.

While I am writing this letter, National Human Rights Commission has already issued notices to Union Home Secretary and the Delhi Police Commissioner regarding 16^th December case, but my concern is about the ecosystem prevailing about the women security and justice system in rape cases.

I am sure a stringent punishment and time bound disposal of cases would act as a deterrent to criminals, resulting in decrease of such offences.

Kindly look into the matter if falls under the purview of honourable Supreme Court.

Yours faithfully                                                                                 

Yogesh Yadav                                                                                                                                    

A copy of this email will be sent by Registered Post

सड़कों पर आओ

घड़ीयाली आसूँ मत बहाओ, आप भी हम लोगों के साथ सड़कों पर आओ|
एक तरफ कहा कि बहुत आहत हूँ इस घटना से और दूसरी तरफ़,
पुलिस वालों से आसूँ गैस के गोले और लाठीया बरसवाओ|
ये नाटक बंद करो मैडम ये पब्लिक सब जानती है,
इसीलिये, प्रधानमंत्री निवास, राष्ट्रपति आवास, पार्टी द़फ्तर
के सामने आके बार-2 हिसाब मांगति है |

लेकिन आप सबने तो आपने-2 घरों पे पुलिसिया पहरा बैठाया है,
आपको क्या फर्क पड़ने लगा कि पाँच साल से पहले आपके दरवाजे कौन आया है |

वह लड़की जो कल आयी थी मिलने, वह आज फिर बैठी है,
शर्म करो, अपने घरों के दरवाजे खोलो, मिलो हम लोगों से,
और जानने कि कम से कम कोशिश तो करो कि ऐसा क्या हुआ कि,
जिसने तुम्हे अपना 'नेता' चुना आज वही जनता तुमसे इतनी रूठी है |

यूनान मिस्र रोम सब मिट गए जहाँ से, मुझे लगता है अब मिटने कि हमारी बारि है,
क्योंकि यहाँ खुले आम बेखौफ, घूम रहे बलात्कारी और भ्रष्ट-आचरी हैं |

नई कहानी

आओ यारों निकल पड़ें अब , आई रुत ये सुहानी .
इन्कलाब की लिखेंगे अब मिलकर नई  कहानी ।

देश बुलाता , आस लगाता ,
याद दिलाता अब हमको उन वीरों की क़ुरबानी
 इन्कलाब की लिखेंगे अब मिलकर नई  कहानी ।

 एक जतिन था, एक भगत, एक सुभाष और एक था शेखर,
एक प्रताप था, एक था बिस्मिल, थी एक जीजाबाई ,
याद करों उन रण वीरों को और बोलो , क्या कोई है उनका सानी,
इसीलिए,  इन्कलाब की लिखेंगे अब मिलकर नई  कहानी ।

दौर नया है, लोग अलग हैं,
इस आज़ादी का एहसास अधूरा , पर जंग अपनी है ये पुरानी ,
 इन्कलाब की लिखेंगे अब मिलकर नई  कहानी ।

भय , भूख और भ्रष्टचार, अब नहीं सहेंगे,
बस कसम यही है खानी,
इन्कलाब की लिखेंगे अब मिलकर नई  कहानी ।

Corruption Within…

For the last couple of months I have been enjoying the socio-political developments at central level, feeling little empowered and as always more agitated.

When Anna Hazare ji initiated his fast unto death, arrogance of so called United ‘Progressive’ Alliance was at its peak. People like Digvijay ridiculed the whole movement and nobody actually took it seriously until Anna ji came to Delhi and actually started his fast. We all joined him at Jantar Mantar, and then after four days, this arrogant (special mention Manish Tewari) government felt the mood of people and finally came out with a notification regarding these demands.

Now Swami Ramdev, having much broader range of demands is planning to repeat the same exercise at Ramlila Maidan. Government is much cautioned this time and it gave me immense pleasure to saw the faces of those public representatives when they went to airport to meet swami Ramdev. I didn’t see Manish Tewari during the day but one of his dear party colleagues Digvijay is still ridiculing the entire movement. He is saying that you can not come up with any sort of laws by these dharnas and protests, as if he knows the process of curbing the corruption but don’t wish to disclose it.

Well, as a common man of this nation I am fully supporting these movements, that’s why went to Jantar Mantar and will try to go to Ramlila Maidan as well but just wanted to raise a point of looking at this menace of corruption from a different perspective or in other sense in a more holistic way. Since the time I started realizing that corruption is one of the biggest threat to our democracy and society at large, I also realized that it is we, all of us, the people of this erstwhile great nation are making it a corrupt and then in turn a failed state.

In fact we all try to either break the rules or try to bypass them as and when we can, in different capacity or forms. How many people do we know in our family, friend, professional circles or for that matter in public space that we can trust upon and guarantee that he/she would not be indulged in any sort of corruption. Take for example IAC movement, apart form Ann Hazare, Kiran Bedi and Santosh Hegde rest all of them are under suspicion.

Otherwise also, out of several interesting points which are being raised about the effectiveness and success of Lokpal, one, which is of huge concern to me, is potential number of cases pertaining to corruption. In a country where corruption is spread across all walks of life, would Lokpal be able to handle cases in such a large volume? Do we want Lokpal to face the same fate as RTI act, where hundreds of cases are lined up in departments and despite the fact that in some cases information officers are working genuinely but still not complying the time lines. We had the provision of fine / punishment for those who would not adhere the timelines of act, just wondering how many officers are fined or punished under this clause.

Point I am trying to raise is, it’s good that we have initiated these movements but going by the volume and scale of corruption in our society, this top to bottom approach is not going to be effective and sustainable until we start something from the bottom.

I m sorry dears corruption is in our minds, by these movements we can only remove the corrupt systems and practices, but wouldn’t be lucky enough to eradicate it from the millions of minds. Let’s have a movement for that as well…

“Do you think these sannyasi children of Sri Ramakrishna are born simply to sit under trees lighting dhuni-fires? Whenever any of them will take up some work, people will be astonished to see their energy. Learn from them how to work “ Swami Vivekananda Ji