ARISE,YE PEOPLE TAKE YOUR STAND!

Hi Folks,

How have you been? All buzzing up?! Certainly,if you're not...the world definitely is! This time again, I have some interesting observations to share...which I'm sure many of you would also have noticed and given a thought or two about it...and possibly even prayed about the situation the world is engulfed in at the moment.

The recent exposures of the Scams,Corruption,Political upheavals and Investigative revelations and the subsequent outcry consequent to it; echo a unified voice of the people, which is CHANGE, ACCOUNTABILITY & ORDER OF THE LAND.

Why start with the West...let's start with our very own country, India. We are a developing nation where statistically more than half, which is 55 percent to be precise of our country's population of 1.1 billion are living below the poverty line and one-third of the world’s poor live in India!!! (To know more, read and find out for yourself... http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/indi-a02.shtml)

Shame the Nation!

Now, contrast the above with this -

Suresh Kalmadi,the Chairman of the Organizing Committee for the Commonwealth Games 2010 misused an estimated 8,000 crores of the public funds allocated towards the games besides of course, don't forget the kickbacks he received for awarding tenders to some favored corporate groups in the mammoth Commonwealth Games scam that rocked our country mid-last year.(Well,the amount could be much more and not less for sure as our politicians and bureaucrats have a bon appétit for money!). Now...if you don't believe me,then you ought to read NDTV's report for more... http://tinyurl.com/64z7467 

Talking of sports,take the IPL,who would have imagined that Lalit Modi's tweet would go horribly wrong and backfire in such a way that it would expose the underbelly of the alleged shady people involved in the game of cricket.

And if this was not enough....then yet another scam that was just waiting to come out of the closet was the 2G scam where it is believed that laws and procedures were flouted when it came to issuing licences for the 2G spectrum which cost the government dearly. At the moment,the matter is still under investigation and the real picture is yet to emerge clearly.

Now...now...here's more! The ex-CJI (Chief Justice of India), who is apparently responsible for ensuring and overseeing justice takes place had cash surplus during his tenure. Now I don't need to explain that...you may very well start your guesses on how he amassed such a wealth! 

And of course our Agriculture Minister Mr. Sharad Pawar who has been assigned the responsibility to ensure that food prices are checked and made available and at the right price seems to be in a state of delusion and oblivion with the spiralling prices of essential food commodities as basic as sugar,onions,grains and edible oils shooting up by the day! Later we also had Chief Minister's of Maharashtra and Karnataka who joined the bandwagon of scamsters! 

Talking of scams...now a days, you pick any scam, the money laundering is no less than a few thousand crores of rupees and what more...just imagine if this money would have been put to effective use in our own country...then those statistics I just mentioned few paragraphs earlier would have dwindled drastically!

Talking of the crime rate and rampant corruption, here are some more alarming statistics for you...

• Out of 178 countries,a statistic reveals that India ranks 87th when it comes to corruption. 
• Our national capital, New Delhi would soon be known to the world as the rape capital of India with new figures given by the Delhi Police reveal that a woman is raped every 18 hours or molested every 14 hours and 1 of every 4 rapes in India is committed in Delhi.

Now....I'm telling you all this not with a sense of pride but with a view for you to understand that before we point fingers at our neighbouring countries on the issue of terrorism,corruption and crime; let me tell you that you and I would never know what terrorism or corruption or even crime for that matter is unless we have harboured, shielded or for that matter witnessed it from close quarters.

Each one of us is responsible for breeding it KNOWINGLY...so before we raise a finger at others we have three fingers pointing right back at us, asking what have we done to curb the menace that is gradually eating away the very foundations of our society. I don't think I need to illustrate more on this. 



Social Media: a new face of many revolutions!



At this stage, I must congratulate and give full marks to the fourth pillar of democracy - "The Media" which includes the Broadcast, Print and yes, even the emerging Social Medias like Facebook and Twitter which has been the backbone of many a revolutions and revelations. All through the media has given an unbiased and a true account of the situation prevalent around the world and conducted itself with utmost responsibility as that of a 'Watch-Dog', even as the three pillars of governance crumbled...

Talking about the media,here's another man I must mention at this juncture,as I believe he deserved this space and without him this article would somewhere be incomplete...He is the Newsmaker of the century and the Man of the hour - Julian Assange. 



Julian Assange...man of the hour!

A man as Julian Assange needs no introduction, but what you definitely need to know here is that one man has made a difference and a contribution to the society...he has declared war against the West and the world at large in a bid to disclose the dual standards and the unethical behaviour adopted particularly by the West in their pursuit of might and power. And even as we see that people in position of power are gunning for his life and doing all they can to conceal and sabotage his efforts....our victory as a nation and as a country and as a human being would be to see that no harm come his way...after all he is just telling people the truth (and it's hard to digest!) which is creating ripples!

The cleansing process begun in India last year and it's still on. At the on-set of the New Year, we saw it happening in the Middle-East....and is still on right this moment. Tomorrow, if it happens in your country....I hope you would rise as one nation and one voice.



Stand Ye still and see the salvation of the Lord...



 After all, I am not asking you to take to the centre-stage, all I want is that in your own little way...lead the WAY! In the Bible, Moses as we all know was not too articulate and was sceptical to accept the responsibility to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt...but God put words into his mouth and had a perfect plan for His children. It was God who helped Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt in the presence of the all powerful, Pharoah when he declared at the mouth of the Red sea, "Stand Ye still and see the salvation of the Lord which He shall show you,Today"...and Forever...May God be by your side always, Amen.



With Great power comes Great responsibility...

Before I end this month's posting, I must tell you about a film which I saw once again and the timing was perfect because I happened to be writing this article. I'm sure that you all may have watched it umpteen number of times...but I'll take this movie as a cue to explain my statement asserted above as it'd be easier to drive my point back home. The film Spiderman holds great relevance on what I have been discussing so far and a profound statement in the film comes at a point when Uncle Ben tells Peter (Spiderman) -"With great power comes great responsibility".

And clearly, you see all through the film that Spiderman never misuses his power except once when he unknowingly kills the same carjacker who shot-dead Uncle Ben. And even when he does so, he reflects back and is somewhere repentant about his act and a realization dawns upon him that he was also in a way responsible for Uncle Ben's death.

Now, if you remember in the confrontation scene with the carjacker,Spiderman recalls that he was the same man who stole the money at gun-point from the game organizer who denied Spiderman his share of the prize money and to teach the organizer a lesson, Spiderman let the carjacker run away scot free right in front of his eyes without realizing that the next man on target was his very own Uncle Ben. So, you see the whole point, I am trying to get at....when you turn a blind eye towards something and you let it manifest....you are way blinded for the rest of your life as people suffer because of your very own undoing.

After all,who is Spiderman? He is a Vigilante, Responsible and Law abiding citizen..he or for that matter all our superheroes endorse the idea of Justice, Equality and Responsibility...and yes, we all could don that role too!

And now as for our leaders and decision-makers,I do hope they realize that before -

They launder people's hard-earned money;

Adopt dual standards with people or for that matter countries less fortunate than they are;

Hoard and deprive human kind of the natural resources meant to be free for all;

Act irresponsibly,unjustly and unreasonably with their people...

                       ...that "WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY".

Keep marching ahead!

Love,

Sonyaa