Missing posts

Time for BJP to explain, why Yeddyurappa is still around
governancenow.com, nov 2010

After a long time, the Bharatiya Janata Party seems to have got its act together as an effective opposition party and put the government on the mat. Parliament remains paralysed on the issue of corruption and several heads have rolled - Shashi Tharoor (Kochi IPL scam), Ashok Chavan (Adarsh housing scam), Suresh Kalmadi (CWG scam) and A Raja (2G spectrum scam).

In many ways, this is a positive development, the most important one of which is to bring corruption in public life to the centre stage of national debate. There is no denying that corruption is rampant and that the central government has to a lot to explain. It is also obvious that the central government is merely staging a “public expiation” by way of getting Tharoor, Chavan, Kalmadi and Raja to resign. That it has no intention of actually punishing them is clear because not a single FIR – the first step to begin the process of bringing them to justice - has been registered against any of them.

Typically, the BJP has sought a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into all of these scams, without talking much about beginning the legal proceedings. For the past few days, parliament has been stalled to press for a JPC into the 2G spectrum scam.

The motive, quite clearly, is political because a JPC provides an opportunity to keep the issue alive for a longer time. Had probity in public life or punishment for corruption been their motive, the party would have put its house in order first.

A glaring example of corruption in its own rank is that of Karnataka chief minister
B S Yeddyurappa. Yeddyurappa has been accused of nepotism. He has made out-of-turn allotment of residential plot to one of his sons in Bangalore and several industrial plots to the firms owned by his two sons and a daughter near Bangalore. While he has been brazing out the call for his resignation by saying that he is “following the tradition set by the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular), the BJP’s central leadership has maintained silence.

Not long ago, the nation was rocked by the allegation of illegal mining in Bellary by the Reddy brothers, Karunakar, Janrdhan and Somasekhar (one is a minister in Yeddyurappa cabinet and another a member of parliament), who are crucial to the survival of the very first BJP government on the other side of the Vidhyas. Inspite of mounting evidence, they have not been not been asked to resign.

If the BJP wants people to take it seriously on the corruption issue, it should first get its act together and seek resignation of Yeddyurappa and the Reddy brothers first before stalling the parliament on corruption issue.
At least the UPA government has taken some action, however token it may be,

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Will Ayodhya verdict lead to resolution of the dispute?
October 1, 2010

The Allahabad high court’s verdict on Ayodhya would seem to suggest that the resolution of the long-standing dispute lies in building both a temple and a mosque at the site - a perfectly secular solution for a secular country.

But there is one jarring note. The claim for a temple seems to have been granted on the basis of “faith and belief of Hindus”, rather than legal reasoning and historical facts. It not only ignores vandalism by the faithful who sneaked in an idol in 1949 or the politicians who led the mob to demolish the mosque at the site in 1992 but also seems to lend credence to ASI's questionable findings about a pre-existing temple there.

This issue is bound to figure prominently when the matter reaches the supreme court, primarily because of the fear that this verdict, if not overturned, will legitimize vandalism and provoke more of the same in future.

Hence the question: Will the Ayodhya verdict lead to a resolution or merely prolong the dispute?
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Shouldn't we bar MPs and ministers from taking any job we have not given them?
April 23, 2010

For more than a week the legislature and the executive have been grappling with the IPL controversy. Almost every enforcement agency is busy digging up the dirt and as more and more murky deals come to surface the cry for an all-encompassing enquiry gets louder, leading to repeated adjournment of parliamentary proceedings. But how fair and meaningful can an enquiry be when it involves several ministers and senior legislators cutting across the party line?

Shouldn’t our legislators better employ their time and energy on the purpose for which they have been elected—to address the concerns of their electorate? After all, their election is a solemn promise to the electorate to work for their betterment for the next five years. But as the IPL controversy reveals, many of our ministers and sitting MPs are busy with something else—running sports bodies. Shouldn’t we bar ministers and sitting legislators from taking up any job, for- or not-for-profit, other than the one we have given them?