© Santosh Subramanian – Some rights reserved - Under Creative Commons

Sunday, November 30, 2008

And the list continues...

A whole lot of my colleagues here had been asking about Mumbai & showing their solidarity & support to pray for the victims of the barbarious act. A handful of them were actually surprised by the way I responded as 'yet another one' - only people like us know how these attacks has become a part & parcel of the common man's life & it made sense to take a look back of the attacks in 2008.

  1. January 2008 - Terrorist attack against Rampur CRPF camp - 8 dead
  2. May 13, 2008 - Serial blasts in Jaipur, Rajasthan - 68 dead
  3. July 25, 2008 - Serial blasts in Bangalore, Karnataka - 1 dead
  4. July 26, 2008 - Serial blasts in Ahmedabad, Gujarat - 57 dead
  5. September 13, 2008 - Serial blasts in New Delhi - 26 dead
  6. September 27, 2008 - Serial blasts in New Delhi - 3 dead
  7. September 29, 2008 - Blast in Modassa, Gujarat - 1 dead
  8. September 29, 2008 - Blast in Malegaon, Maharashtra - 5 dead
  9. October 21, 2008 - Blast in Imphal, Manipur - 17 dead
  10. October 30, 2008 - Serial blasts in Assam - 77 dead
  11. November 26, 2008 - Terrorists open fire at public in Mumbai - ~200 dead so far (many critical as on date)

And the value of 463 lives (in 2008)? Absolutely nothing!

Apart from making the general statement of blaming ISI & Pakistan & Jehadis for the blast, our leaders did nothing! Now I hear that we had intelligence information about this shoot-out from the fishermen folks after their boat was hijacked - and what did our police/intelligence do? NOTHING.

In the past years, we saw terrorist aggression in many other countries and what makes them different from us? Other chose to ACT upon information and thus prevented many more to come. People, parties, leadership & the intelligence stood together for their country.

And us? The latest I hear that the DCP denied that there was any prior information about the Mumbai attack & the fishermen is making up stories. And I can guess how easy it is to wipe out a complaint from the books if there is a political reason to do so. We have seen cases like 'Abhaya murder' case go on without the culprits being punished for 16 years - reasons are political.

I dont have many choices at the ballot box - It is like chosing between the devil & the sea. But I hear there is a section in our constitution that talks about null votes - which means the voter can decide that none of the candidates are fit to be chosen.

Additionally a provision should be made to ensure that a percent cut-off like 5-10% of null votes means that re-election needs to be conducted and the cost of such a re-election should be recovered from the present candidates because they denied the opportunity for a qualified one.

I don't know - It is my frustration talking...




3 comments:

Bindhu Unny said...

Most of us are frustrated. If only we could convert it into some meaningful, productive actions! I'm feeling frustrated for not doing that :-)

"And a percent cut-off like 5-10% of null votes means that re-election needs to be conducted." - This is false info.

Santosh said...

@Bindhu;
Isn't that wonderful that the internet has opened up such a wide opportunity to air your views, but indirectly also creates your personality?

All of us are frustrated, but sadly its ends at bitching for sometime & nowadays one or two blog posts - for those who blog.

Reminds me of old saying of "ഏട്ടിലെ പശു പുല്ലു തിന്നില്ല..." me included :) and that gives the leadership additional courage to continue to be lethargic to the real problems.

About the provision in the constitution on the percentage & re-election: my knowledge on such matters is very limited to some reading I did in some magazine article - sometime in 2005. Thanks for correcting - if that is false info.

Santosh said...

@Bindhu;
I have corrected the percentage related data - It is now more of my wish to be that way! :)