The Iran spy drone incident

As per recent news reports a US RQ-170 drone was captured by Iran. Iran wants to put this along with some other captured drones on display. This brings to mind the Gary Powers U-2 incident. The Wikipedia article in fact mentions the RQ-170 below the main article. The Soviet Union is history today. American animosity of late has been focused on Iran. An interesting insight is that Iran seems to have been used by the US for military purposes. This was before the Iranian revolution where the Shah was removed and the current Islamic regime came into place.

Another thing that caught my attention was this article. Indian market faces "risk" of losing trillion dollar tag? I think we have much more important things to worry about than crossing a number, that too not in our own currency. We have inflation and corruption to begin with. Let these be addressed first. One thing which worries me is that no one (in the government) seems to be talking about long-term measures. When the issue is inflation the RBI is asked to tighten rates. What about supply-side measures? We are talking about the Food Security Bill. Where will we get the foodgrains (okay, these might be sufficient) and the funds to support this bill? The government seems to be going in for knee-jerk reactions. Will it address long-term issues also please?

Lokpal reservation and Bharat Ratna

Trust the government to introduce some, well, politics into anything and everything. Just when the average citizen started hoping the Lokpal bill would be passed in this session of Parliament, there have been reports that the government wants to introduce reservation into the Lokpal. 50% of the seats would be reserved for people from the OBCs, and SC/ST. This is being done to placate the RJD and a few other parties. Is the government playing games? What does caste have to do with integrity? What is the need for this? Do the likes of the RJD believe that unless there is reservation "backward" classes would be targeted by the Lokpal? For all one should care the Lokpal can consist of only people from the backward castes, or none from these, the only criterion being that they should be people of integrity and capability. Why are extraneous considerations being brought in? The RJD is a non-entity today. It seems to be trying to come back into the limelight through measures like these.

Now I come to the topic of the Bharat Ratna. What I say now might be sacrilege to hundreds and thousands but I believe Sachin Tendulkar should not be awarded the Bharat Ratna, yet. This is an award, which I believe has already lost some of its value when it was awarded to Indira Gandhi (when she was still alive) and to Rajiv Gandhi. I am not sure how much these two deserved this award. Coming back to sports, the government has done the right thing by removing the ineligibility of sportspersons to receive this award. I believe any citizen of India (Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela are the only two non-Indian citizens to have received this award till date) should be eligible to receive the award. However I believe there are other sportspersons who have made great contribution to sports before Tendulkar. Dhyanchand, as the Sports Minister, Ajay Maken pointed out is a good candidate. Also, in cricket-crazy India it would be nice, for a change for a non-cricketer to receive the award first. 

There has been much outrage against the reinstatement of SPS Rathore's pension. I believe this was suspended after he was convicted in a molestation case of Ruchika Girhotra. While what he has done cannot be condoned, I fail to see why his pension should be stopped. He did work for the government. If he is guilty he should be punished. But I do not see why the pension should be stopped. It is sad to see such a man let off with so little punishment, but this seems to be a shortcoming of our legal system.