Monday 10 September 2012

Vanka leni...

The attitude of a certain political party towards the CAG somehow reminds me of the Telugu saying which natives will recognize from the title. The Hindi equivalent (kind of) is naach na jaane, aangan tedha (blaming the slanted floor for not being able to dance). Before I am lampooned I shall admit that the Telugu equivalent for this is aada leka maddelani annattu (blaming the instrument for not being able to play it).

The spokesperson of this party has blamed the CAG for the monsoon session. In reality the opposition parties have to definitely take the blame. However if the government had not provided the fire the opposition would not have provided the smoke. A previously active spokesperson had to quit after his colourful private life was exposed (pun unintended). The present spokesperson took the easy way out and blamed the easiest target. The CAG has generally not responded publicly to any allegations against him. So the political party is kind of safe.

Moving on, the powers-that-be in India have once again proved how intolerant we are of dissent. The cartoonist Aseem Tripathy perhaps got a trifle carried away when he portrayed wolves instead of lions in the national emblem. Ideally this should not have been done. But arresting the guy is taking things a little too far. The interesting thing is in this case though there are accusations of politics behind the arrest, it is the police who seem to have become too active.

And what is this item in the news which says wives will get salaries? As can be said, "78% of all statistics are made up, like this one". I mean no disrespect to homemakers, my wife is one. But is paying your family member a salary the only way to give "socio-economic empowerment" to women? So tomorrow will we find guys turning homemakers, asking their wives to work while they get salaries from them? This is apparently a way in which we will get a "truer picture of GDP in our country". Has the government lost all hope in its team of lawyer-ministers and bureaucrats? Does this government believe India's growth story is so dead that we will have to resort to (badly) creative accounting to inflate our GDP figures which by some estimates might go below 6% also this fiscal?

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