An obituary for Indian democracy?

Just check the list below, this is with regard to the Indian Parliament

Bills slated for discussion in this session

1. Lokpal

2. Judicial Accountability

3. Food Security

4. Land Acquisition

5. Education

Sample what happened in the Lok Sabha today - the Rajya Sabha was adjourned after obituary references

1. Left - wants to corner the government over inflation

2. BJP/NDA - wants to corner the government on inflation, corruption (and black money)

3. TRS - raised the Telangana issue in Parliament today

4. Samajwadi Party - unhappy with the proposal to divide UP

5. Shiva Sena - trooped into the well, I don't know why

6. Team Anna - is prepared to re-start the agitation

This truly represents a government under siege from all directions. If the discussion entail voting the government is probably not sure whether or not it will win the motions. If I am not mistaken every hour of our legislature costs the government about INR (when will the Rupee symbol be incorporated into keyboards?) 2 lakhs. I am part of the hapless population that pays taxes. I don't want to finance these incidents (if I call them or especially the perpetrators anything rude, what I actually might want to, I might have a case against me, in spite of India being a country with "free speech").

The bills slated for discussion are historic to say the least. Corruption is a burning issue in India today. No one outside the judiciary probably completely knows how or why it functions the way it does. We are talking about providing subsidized food to a large part of our population (with money about which I have no idea as to where it is coming from). Vital projects have been stalled across the country due to land issues. Education is an urgent requirement of what is probably among the world's youngest nations. But are we doing anything useful? No! Why should we? 

Our politicians' "appraisal" comes only once in five years. Sufficient time for (at least some of) them to have amassed fortunes which will comfortably last a few generations. Why the hell am I working my ass off in a private sector job?

When will our democracy rise from its ashes (make no mistake, I believe it keeps dying regular deaths)?

RIP, House of Lords?

Britain is planning to do away with the House of Lords in its Parliament as per a news report. I believe that our Parliament (among a lot of things) is based on the British system. Is it time we looked at doing away with our Rajya Sabha? There used to be two houses in the Andhra Pradesh legislature. When N T Rama Rao was the Chief Minister he did away with the upper house (the legislative council) and now there is only the legislative assembly. There are still legislative councils in a few other states in India today. The vallue that is added by the Parliament is suspect anyway :P It costs lakhs to run the Parliament for a day and everyone knows how well our Parliament (dis)functions.

An interesting point is that abuse of expenses has been given as a reason for the aforementioned decision. Will such accountability be present in India as far as our legislators are concerned? There have been news reports that the government's austerity drive might end soon. Should our "leaders" be circumspect about their expenses only when the going is tough? There were riots yesterday in Bengaluru about allocation of tickets for municipality elections. Imagine the amount of money that must be up for grabs through the posts of these "people's representatives". I am not foolish enough to say that we must do away with our legislature. I am just curious if it is feasible to do away with the Rajya Sabha.

UPDATE: My friend Sasanka tells me that AP still has a legislative council. He says that the current CM is a member of this and not of the assembly. I stand corrected. By the way I believe Rama Rao initially thought it was not useful and he also wanted money for his kilo-rice-for two-rupees scheme.