Stupid mistakes…

Everybody makes mistakes, isn’t it? And some great scholars and philosophers even justify saying that mistakes are a stride towards achieving success. Like Albert Einstein himself says that, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new". Well said, isn’t it? So, does that mean we forgive and forget the string of accusations that our not-so-respected Minister Mr. Kalmadi and his troupe face today? After all even Mr. Kalmadi along with his working team who form an important part of the Common Wealth Games (CWG) Organising Committee was managing it for the first time. And why only the Organising Committee (OC), India herself is playing host to the CWG 2010 for the first time…so should we be forgiving these first-timers huh!

Well, Well, Well…I wish we could! Provided these first-timers slipped-up in areas related to the actual operations or preparations of the games, it was pardonable. But goofing up with tax payer’s money and doctoring the balance sheets of the games itself, is something not only unpardonable but should also be sternly punished. In fact, the guilty of the CGW corruption episode should suffer the same fate like the entrepreneurs of global corporate scams such as the Enron and Satyam. These corporate fraudsters are probably doing the jailhouse rock in return for the scams they planted in their respective organizations. But when it comes to uprooting corruption from the government, we take it lying down with a “chalta-hain” (its okay) attitude. I wonder how long will we as citizens, who are the actual landlords of this country, allow our servants to take us for granted. Shouldn’t we put our foot down and demand a quick fix and unearthing of corrupt officials in our public administration.

A paisa-vasool
Before we go to watch a movie, we read film reviews, ratings, and get a lowdown of the success of the film from the public, to make sure that we get a “paisa-vasool” (return on investment) from that film. Likewise, when we invest in our government and the working of this country, we also expect a paisa-vasool. So, do we really get a 100% return on our investment is the question we need to ask ourselves.

We have a fantastic democracy in this country which is our biggest asset, but to step up honest functioning of this democracy, we need transparency, we need good quality of work, we need cleansing of the law makers and administrators who misuse their power for their own benefit, we need education for all, we need to see that every family has a bread-whiner, we need equality irrespective of sex, religion, caste, we need a clean and safe environment to live in.

“All lives to have equal value”
This is the ambitious vision statement of the Bill and Melinda Foundation, a company started by the brainchild of Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates, who started off this global charity with his wife Melinda Gates, with an aim to achieve their vision of, “All lives to have equal value”.

What a beautiful thought, isn’t it? And honestly it is a thought which is complimented by loads of actions by this foundation on behalf of the world’s poorest people, to improve the human condition. When Bill Gates came down to India to contribute to his global mission, he wished to fund to improve the poor health conditions of Northern India. At that time, he met up with Rahul Gandhi, the young generation leader of the youth Congress, who very frankly and honestly told Bill Gates that, “right now a lot of the money is not getting to the intended recipients and that it won’t be easy to fix”. Undeniably, corruption is the biggest battle that India is facing today and until we don’t cleanse our administrative and legislative system, it will spread out like cancer and will become irreversible to get it back on track.

On a hopeful note
There’s no doubt about the dishonestly of most of our ministers who get involved in malpractices and corruption to earn bread, butter, jam, cheese, and toppings, in addition to their monthly salary. But hopefully, with the recent whopping 300% raise in their salary, scams and frauds which have become a prevalent habit gets abolished completely and we see more transparency in the proceedings of our administration.

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Before I sign out, as I always say take very good care of yourself and God Bless!