Don’t destroy my country in the name of “Breaking news”!!!!!

India, one of the fastest developing countries in the world, has lost in the race of image perception both internally and externally. It is not because of myriads of corruption emerging each day cutting across party lines but because of electronic media’s poor strategy of adding television rating points. It is good that “media” both print and electronic media acting as the “fourth pillar” of Indian Constitution apart from Legislative, Executive and Judiciary. Playing such a high role, it should act more sensibly.

Without media’s effort no great scams have come to light .Few years back, medias are afraid of cunning politicians but now a day’s cunning politicians are afraid of media. It is sparing no one, whomever he may, and how powerful he may-thanks to vibrant media. It created “sense of fear” among wrong doing people mainly wrong doing politicians and bureaucrats. Sure it will reduce corruption in coming days. But at the same time it created much damage to the country’s image perception.

Mainly ,the electronic media in the name of “Breaking News” highlighting the scams and wrong doing doings of politicians and bureaucrats 24*7-that’s fine but at the same it need to focus on the positive side too. If a person with great ambition of civil service keeps on watching news channel, then sure he will drop his aim in a short span time because it is just highlighting the darker side of the country, like corruption done by bureaucrats ,politicians influencing bureaucrats, un-ethical transfers, mafia beaten honest officers and goons killed honest administrators etc. On seeing these entire things, one may get afraid of the civil service and quits his aim because it failed to create “sense of optimism” among the emerging younger generation. Many honest civil servants are doing great work to the country which goes un-noticed. If those works are highlighted along with the darker side of India, then the younger generation works hard to change the darker side to grey and then to white instead of quitting civil service. It is national shame to hear that 180 honest civil servants quit because of pressure from darker side groups in past ten years. The exam syllabus, selection procedure and the training before ,a person get into civil service are  in such a way that no one should think of corruption and wrong doings but because of the environment in which he is  forced to fit into the Darwin’s theory of “Survival of fittest”. He is afraid of frequent transfers, so many works that he intended to do have been destroyed at the budding stage itself.

Likewise, many politicians are doing great work to the country but those deserved things to be highlighted are gone un-noticed to the electronic media .For example, the great work of the rural development minister in campaigning for sanitation to all, vast deliberations on Genetically modified food by few members of parliament and good articulation about India and its policies in UN by the former Deputy-Prime minister etc. Few politicians deserve kudos towards their work but not all. If media mainly electronic media sheds light on good work done by some good politicians, then the younger generation will get into politics in order to eliminate the bad ones and to carry India in right direction. Now a day’s “Politics” is seen as a thing of un-touch ability by honest people.

If media keeps on highlighting bad things alone, then day by day politics and bureaucracy  will lose its image completely and  there will be full of goons in near future occupying the both .So the media should play positive role too in building up India with spreading optimism among the younger generation.

                                                                                

                                                                                   Govind Prakash         

                   Lokpal Bill fiasco

Lokpal is an independent ombudsman body (Legal Representative) in India which will deal with the corruption. It was first introduced in 1968 in the Loksabha(Lower house) by Shanti Bushan.But it failed to pass in the Rajyasabha(Upper house).Eight futile attempts were made to pass the bill since the introduction. Another attempt was made by UPA II on 27th December 2011, which was passed in Loksabha but it is pending with Rajyasabha. Congress passed the bill in the Loksabha with the help of SP and BSP walking out, showing their opposition with the intention to help the government to pass the bill by reducing the required vote. Many amendments were raised by main opposition party BJP and the left but none of them succeeded in getting them passed because Congress was adamant in accepting the opposition's demands.

As the bill passed in the Loksabha it was placed before the Rajyasabha where the Congress is minority which was forced to accept the amendments. Here the largest ally TMC opposed the bill and introduced the amendments. Two amendments were taken in hand by most of the opposition parties. One for autonomy of the CBI and the other for the creation of Lokayukta in states should be left with the state governments. If the Congress accepts the amendments in the Rajyasabha then the bill needs to be placed again in the Loksabha for the approval, so that the bill cannot be passed in the winter session. If the bill was put to vote in the current form then sure it would be rejected because of minority. So the Congress tried hard to appease TMC to support the bill in its current form but couldn’t. So the congress tried its best to avoid voting by keeping in mind that if the bill after voting failed, then it would cause great embarrassment to the government.

In order to avert voting congress executed two tricky plans. They want to run out of time so that three days of extended session will get over. As per the plan, first they brought quota for minorities issue which leads to disruption and the session was adjourned for about 15 minutes.

Next with the help of RJD MP, they scripted a most embarrassing ploy. An RJD MP directly went to the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V Narayanasamy’s place where he was proceeding with the debate with his blurred voice and pulled the paper from his hands, tore and threw it.

But with a large heart Narayanaswamy continued with his speech which no one understood .For every point made by the opposition, he gave ridiculous answers. In simple words he gave poll campaign speech like "What the BJP and other parties done”. No valuable or counter point in his an hour long speech which was with the intention to run out of time. Finally clock ticks for 12 am and they succeed in running out time and Rajysabha was adjourned sine die.

As usual after everything there would be some blame game among government and the opposition. Here also it took place without any exception, but eventually more words were released against Congress, even from its allies. Opposition rightly called it as “a murder of democracy ". Once again we, the people of India failed to get anti-corruption bill because of the inept government and the opposition.

- Govind Prakash

My Article in civilserviceindia.com website.

URL:http://www.civilserviceindia.com/subject/Essay/lokpal-Govind.html