Aruna Shanbaug's case: What really got missed out

For the last couple of weeks, Pinki Virani's euthanasia plea for Aruna Shanbaug managed to catch media's attention. The judges did the right thing. They elicited medical opinion about Aruna and then passed the judgment that Aruna should not be forcibly put to sleep. I completely agree with the court's argument that no one has the right to take Aruna's life. In fact, our system has failed to protect her and that is why she is in that state. Hence, we (read government) need to ensure that she does not suffer from inadequate medical attention, whatever be the cost. Since the nurses at KEM are taking good care of her since 38 years, let the same arrangement continue as long as she lives.

The judges who passed the judgment in Aruna's case, ignored one important aspect in the Indian laws which is crying for attention. That is about the inadequate quantum of punishment in such cases. This case had provided the right opportunity to bring it into focus and have the government change the laws accordingly. Without very hard punishment, the Sohan Lals who ruined Aruna's life would continue their acts without much deterrance.

Let us take Aruna's case itself. Sohan Lal, the sweeper, managed to ruin Aruna's life forever by his heinous act. If this incident had not happened Aruna's life would have been a great. But, for ruining her life forever, what punishment did he get? Just seven years in jail. In fact it was stupid for the judges to allow 2 7-year terms to run in parallel, in his case. In fact, our laws should discontinue this practice which is unfair to the victim. For the crime that Sohan Lal committed, the magnitude of punishment must have ruined his life. That is when I would say Aruna got justice. The judges did not focus on this aspect of the case at all.

In India, every day, there are so many cases of rape, acid throwing and so many other heinous crimes committed, but the perpetrators of crime get away with very short life terms for ruining someone's life. If you ask me, the cases of rape do much more damage to the victim than a murder. Thus, the laws should get changed accordingly. I would have been thankful to Pinky Virani if she had brought this aspect out in her case instead of assisted suicide. That would have changed the system for good. The court did not have to allow passive euthanasia in any case. It was already being practiced in different forms by the medical fraternity.

In summary, the Indian penal code needs a lot of urgent amendments to make it more effective. This includes de-criminalizing suicide attempts, but unless it addresses the root cause which is the quantum of punishment in various heinous crimes, the suffering of the people would continue unabated which Sohan Lals continue with their crimes.

Indian Railways: Wasted opportunity?

A couple of days ago, we had another railway budget. As expected, the monister had no clue how to prioritize things for the railways. It looked like a tamasha. Like a Raja giving away dole to his constituents. In this case, the constituents happened to be the state going to the polls which included the railway minister's home state as well. How long this tamasha should go on? Shouldn't there be an end to all this very soon? In fact, Railways is also one of the important pieces of the infrastructure puzzle which is very much essential to achieve the 9% growth that we everyone is talking about.

To understand the mess that the railways is in, let us atke some examples. Every year, more passenger trains are introduced in the northern & eastern sectors and not southers & western. It is a known fact that less than 10% people buy ticket in the sectors which Railways is prioritizing whereas in sectors which are not getting any attention, most people buy tickets and exceptions are few and far in-between. For example, in Karnataka, there is so much traffic between Bangalore-Mysore, Bangalore-Hubli & Bangalore-Mangalore sectors. If I was running railways, I would have laid 3-4 lines in these sectors and run superfast trains. But, the reality is that each of these sectors have only one railways line built very long ago. I would have built a lot of lines from various mineral ruch areas of Karnataka to Mangalore port to cash-in on the freight traffic.

What needs to be done so that Indian Railways can not only be run efficiently, but also stop its dependency on the government? To start with, it should be converted into a corporation, like SBI or BHEL and allow it to be run by a professional like Sreedharan who is running DMRC. This would ensure that the finances of Railways becomes more transparent and we would atleast know where it stands in terms of its assets & liabilities. Otherwise, it will be Mamatha's word against Laloo's. Someone like Sreedharan who knows how railways works can work out a suitable corporate structure for railways. He may need external help, but this needs to be the first step.

After Railways becomes a corporation with its own CEO & board of directors, the government can slowly start diversting its equity like it did for other PSU's and ultimately make it a completely professional run corporation like L&T. Since Railways operates in a space where having more than one corporation does not make sense, we cannot allow private operators. We just need to ensure that the existing corporation is run efficiently without any government interference. Competition with Airlines & road transport will make it more efficient in the long run, but only if it is not under government clutches.

In summary, Railways needs to come out of government clutches for it be a real partner in the India growth story. Otherwise, its contribution will be as dismal as Air India.

India in a hurry: Are we working towards development or chaos?

The sentencing of Binayak sen, the PUCL activist from Chattisgarh brings to the fore the way the country looks & treats naxalism. Naxalism is getting equated to terrorism & lot of innocent people are being targeted just because they are protesting against government's inaction. The governments of the day seem to be either hell-bent on taking advantage of naxalism or have tried to address the symptoms at best. No one is trying to address the root cause.

What is the root cause of naxalism? It is a deadly mix of poverty and perceived belief of being wronged. In most of the cases it is true. In a hurry to sanction lands for development (for obvious reasons), the state forgets its responsibility of the need to take care of its citizens in a wholesome manner and provide for their bare necessities at the least.

Whenever land is identified for a particular project, a thorough analysis is not done about the effect of the intervention on the ecosystem at that location. For example, when land is acquired for a mine in a tribal dominated area adjoining a forest, what could be the impact? The tribals who are generally dependent on the forest ecosystem are suddenly reduced to penury since the resource which they depended on is no longer there nor they are provided any alternative means of livelihood. The forest ecosystem is also disturbed, but so far I have not heard anybody paying serious attention to analyzing the impact on the animals & forest ecosystem. Ideally, both the tribals & the forest need to considered together while working on a rehabilitation process. Otherwise, tribals become naxals while the forest animals run into people in neighboring villages & get killed.

The case of acquisition of agricultural land is much more simpler. Either the complete ecosystem should be created elsewhere or people compensated appropriately so that their standard of living does not get negatively affected. In fact, the government should ensure that their standard of living becomes better since they are in a way sacrificing their convenience for the betterment of the country by surrendering their land. Unfortunately, the people who come up with the relief & rehabilitation programs either do not understand what needs to be done or simply not bothered.

So, in a hurry to get more projects off the ground quickly, the governments end up creating Singurs across the length & breadth of the country. In some places, the people succeed in halting the project while in some others, the movements are just suppressed and the result is there for everyone to see. While India's GDP is increasing at a scorching pace, more than half of the country lives in poverty. More development projects will lead to more chaos unless enough attention is not paid towards relief & rehabilitation. The end-result could be a Laloo-time-Bihar kind of situation across the country with affected people taking to unlawful means to earn their livelihood.

Carlton Tower fire in Bangalore: Is anything going to change at all?

Four days ago, we had fire in a high-rise in Bangalore, i.e the Carlton Towers. The fire brigade folks did not reach on time, they did not have equipment (even ladders to reach the fifth floor), no water in the fire hose in the building, the emergency exit doors locked etc. So many reasons were cited for the failure of the civic authorities to enforce the regulations. The cost? 9 lives and still counting. Do you think anything is going to change after this fiasco? Yes, but very little.

First of all, the occupants of the building (most of them) did not know where the stairs were! In fact when I had gone to Carlton Towers sometime ago, I myself found it difficult to locate the stairs and had to ask a lot of people before I located them. None of the occupants knew what to do in case of fire. They did not even bother to ask why the emergency exits were locked in the first place. The reason? indifference. People in Bangalore and most other places in India are plain indifferent. They just don't care till it hits them. Then they want everyone else to care for them.

Secondly, I saw the head of the fire services come on television and point out a lot of problems with the building. If she really likes to do good work, she should visit the public utility building, another commercial landmark in Bangalore, which is owned by the Bangalore City Corporation. It is a 24-floor building and its maintenance is pathetic and that is true with any government building. To make things worse, if the lifts are not working, some floors of the this building become inaccessible because there are no stairs to reach those floors! If there is fire in those floors, then the people who are stuck there can just pray.

Finally, all the agencies (fire, police, electrical folks etc.) are investigating the cause of fire. Any person with common sense can easily see that all they are trying to do is address the symptoms and not the root cause. I am very sure nothing is going to change in the building after all these investigations. Some reports will be produced and they will lie in some corner of the concerned government department and that is it.

In conclusion, whether it is the Carlton Towers fire, German Bakery incident or anything else, the indifference of the people and their representatives will ensure that everyone will forget these incidents very soon and move on. At the most, one more bill may be introduced in the legislature to create more laws, but when enforcement is the issue, what is the point in having more laws?

Great Indian Budget:: Does it deserve the attention it gets?

Everyone in India, including the media, the industry and everyone else eagerly awaits for the union budget every year, without exception, as though the budget is going to change the way their lead their lives. Is the budget really that important? I don't think so. In my view it is an hyped up event which does not deserve any attention at all, at least not the amount of attention it gets.

What happens in each budget? The government in power presents its annual report for the current financial year and outlines the income and expense heads proposed for the next financial year. Pretty much similar to what Infosys does at the end of every financial year. The companies do it after the financial year ends, but the government does it one month before. This is the only difference.

Current & potential investors and analysts (so called) pay attention to an Infosys annual result briefing, because, they are affected by it. The analysts need to advise their investors based on the results while investors decide to stay invested or increase their investments in Infosys based on the results and guidance, if given. But, with regard to the union budget, do the investors have such a choice? Yes they do. They can leave the country and go elsewhere if the policies are not favourable. That is it. They have no choice but to remain invested and continue to invest more, every passing year.

So why so much hoopla? It is because media wants it that way. Media needs events to report. For instance, would Ruchika Girotra's case have got so much media attention if Pune blasts had happened at the same time? Most probably not. Every year, the media tries to build hype around what to expect in the budget and soon after the budget, have folks analyze it and say something about it. Once that is done, they move on to the next story.

To summarize, the buzz around the union budget is a media creation and nothing else. We are certainly better of not paying so much attention to the budget, because we pretty much know what to expect in it much before than the announcements are actually made.

Is it time for a homegrown Prometric or Pearson in India?

These days, We are seeing a lot of action in education, especially higher education. The Right To Education bill is going to become a reality very soon. There is also a move to encourage private investment in higher education in a form different from what it is now. So far, there was not much participation from the corporate world especially in higher education. This is going to change soon. The HRD minister is also talking about having common syllabus and common entrance exams across the country for different professional courses. All these things open up a lot of interesting opportunities for related fields like test prep, test administration, and other allied services. The opportunity is huge. In this article, I will delve into details about one such opportunity.

Firstly, let us assume that the HRD minister is able to convince all the stakeholders to agree for a common entrance test for engineering admissions across India. This means someone should administer a single test for almost 4-5 million aspirants across India. Every year half a million people appear for IITJEE, 1 million for AIEEE and around 3-4 million for state entrance exams. I am sure someone like Prometric (who administer GRE, SAT & TOEFL) and Pearson (who administer GMAT) would salivate at this opportunity. But why no one in India is even looking at this opportunity is puzzling. It should be someone of the stature of Tata, who have built a lot of trust, who will get such an opportunity if the government allows a not-for-profit private organization to conduct such tests. Both Prometric and Pearson are companies with a long history and billions of dollars in turnover and would definitely be pitching in.

Secondly, we, in India are always used to tying up with someone rather than do something from scratch. I guess, it is this trait which is preventing us from going the whole distance in producing products which we can truly call, our own. I would not be surprised if some Indian company ties up with Prometric or Pearson to grab this opportunity. In the previous paragraph I just talked about tests related to admission to under-graduate courses in engineering. In addition there are tests for admission to medical, law & design schools and even post-graduate courses in various fields. In addition, with so many more schools & colleges getting established in the private domain, teacher certification will be another big opportunity. I am just talking about opportunities in India.

So far, most of the focus in India is on test-prep and this needs to change. The revered CAT has already gone to Pearson. We, in India, need to learn to go after bigger and larger opportunities. For that we should first start thinking big and long-term. Everyone in India is talking about education becoming the next big opportunity. But the questions is, are we preparing ourselves to capitalize on this opportunity? At-least as of now, I don't think so.

Patents: China 5th, India nowhere in top 10

The results are out. In terms of the patent filings this year, India is nowhere in the picture while US is way ahead and China is catching up. As usual, everybody thinks it is because of lack of focus on basic research in India. The real reason is something else.

Firstly, in India, people are used to being jack of all than being the master of one. Of course there is a reason to this. We are a country where there is a shortage for almost everything, even now. This forces people to focus on the basic necessities and live for the present than think of the long term. Most of the people still prefer working for a company than do something on their own.

Secondly, even the guys who get into research will have the job in mind rather than create a revolution in their field of research. I remember one of my classmates who did a doctorate in a niche area of computer science and later took up a job in a private company where he never did anything related to his field of research. He was one of the brightest in our class and got a gold medal in IIT Madras during his masters degree.

The real clincher is our legal system. Assuming someone files for a patent and gets it too. What is the guarantee that the same is enforceable by law. At-least in India, unless you have good connections, the court cases will take so long that you will forget what you fought for by the time the verdict is delivered. When such is the case why would someone want to waste time spending money to file for a patent?

In the developed countries, people are used to filing patents for anything and everything. In India, especially in the country side you will come across a lot of innovations which can be patented, but the inventors don't even have enough money to hire a patent consultant to file for it. They don't even know their invention's worth.

In summary, the prevailing economic conditions, the mindset of the people, the legal system and awareness about the value of getting something patented are some of the main reasons for less number of patent filings from India. Not spending enough money on basic research is certainly not the main reason. We have enough research institutes where good amount of research happens.

Price rise: What are the possible causes?

Price rise is the buzz-word these days. The rise in prices of essential commodities has been bothering people for quite sometime now. But the governments don't seem to be taking any measure to address this problem except for making some statements. Everyone seems to be putting the blame on hoarding of commodities, exports, introduction of commodity futures, etc. But the real problem is something else, in my view.

First of all ours is a highly regulated economy with too much of unaccounted money. All the while, this money was chasing real-estate. But recession has changed this trend quite a bit. With so much of disposable incomes not finding investment avenues, people tend to be more liberal with other expenses like travel, food, automobiles, dining-out etc. All these activities translate to a lot of money into other pockets as well (like auto salesmen, food joints, travel agents, etc). When these others also start spending, it is a chain-reaction. Indian tend to spend a lot of money on food. A recent Mckinsey survey found that Indians spend 42% of their income (which is accounted for) on food & beverages.

Secondly, there are these APMCs (Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees) which consists of middlemen who buy up the produce from the farmers at low prices and sell to the retailers and make handsome profits. Unless the governments scrap the APMC act which forces the farmers to sell their produce to these folks, we will not see fair prices. If the retailers can buy directly from the farmers, then at-least the farmers will make more money. This anomaly needs to be fixed.

The last straw in this price imbroglio is the government's policy of fixing minimum support price for commodities and buying the produce from the farmers and putting it in its warehouses and let it rot. It should let market determine the price and compensate farmers in other ways rather than try to fix the price. They should stop the quota system like the ones which require sugarcane farmers to sell their produce to a particular sugar factory at a given price. This will only make the sugar barons richer and will not benefit either the farmer or the end-consumer.

In summary, the government policies are the root cause for the current price rise. Unless they take bold steps to fix the anomalies, the situation is only going to get worse. Of-course, some steps to boost the real-estate market may provide a quick fix to the problem!

Shiv Sena: What makes these kind of outfits survive and thrive

This week, we have the Shiv Sena crying foul at Shahrukh Khan's remarks about Pakistani cricketers in IPL. First of all, Shahrukh Khan is one irresponsible guy. If he really wanted Pakistani cricketers in IPL, he could have easily replaced some useless folks in the Kolkata Knight Riders team by Pakistani players. But his intent was not to take Pakistani players, but to get mileage by making irresponsible statements. But Shiv Sena is equally irresponsible for reacting to Shahrukh's statement the way they did.

Sometime ago there was a similar problem in Assam where some north Indians were targeted. Shiv Sena got its relevance by targeting south Indians in Mumbai. I am sure such things will be happening everywhere in India, but they may not be getting reported because they may not be happening on a large scale. The point I am trying to make is the fact that when local people (say Marathis in Mumbai) see a lot of north Indians or south Indians doing better because they are more enterprising than they are, they are bound to envy them and given an opportunity, target them and trouble them in some form.

Is there any solution to this problem? I don't think any solution exists. Why? because there will always be a good number of people in any part of the world who don't have anything else to do other than kill time and have someone pay for their living. Essentially folks who are looking for easy money. In a city like Mumbai, such people will be many and it is these people who will be targeted by outfits like Shiv Sena and try to whip up passions and get votes. Parties like Congress or BJP cannot antagonize them totally because they are afraid that they may need them sometime for some purpose.

A better solution to the problem, in my view, will be to work towards decreasing the rural-to-urban migration which is the root cause for such problems. The governments should work towards a more inclusive development which is evenly spread across the length and breadth of the country. If Bihar itself was prosperous, they why would a person from Bihar migrate to Mumbai? The same is true with migration from other parts of the country to places like Bangalore, Chennai etc. The migration disturbs the social fabric of the city and this is what outfits like Shiv Sena take advantage of.

In summary, embarking on a more evenly spread out development in India is the only way to avoid communal outfits like Shiv Sena taking people for a ride.

Why India does not produce a lot of world-class sportspersons?

I have always wondered why India, with its huge population does not produce even a handful of world-class sports-persons. All of us know that more than 1/3 of India lives below poverty line, but more than 1/4 of India constitutes middle-class. But still we struggle to get even one gold medal at the Olympic games in individual sports. If you analyze even a little bit, the reasons are pretty obvious.

Firstly, most people in India who can afford to spend on getting their children in sports do not think that their kids can pursue sports as a career. While it is true to some extent, see what Sania Mirza has achieved even without getting into top 25? While Ramanathan Krishnan was our first world-class player in tennis, it is Ramesh Krishnan and Vijay Amritraj who made Tennis popular in India and Sania Mirza has taken it to the next level. But no one has reached Ramanathan's level in India even now when it comes to Tennis.

Secondly, the adulation that the players get even when they achieve results classified mediocre in world standards is what I consider the dampener. Sania Mirza never managed to cross the 30s ranking so far. In Badminton, whole country came to know that there is one great game called shuttle badminton when Prakash Padukone won the all England championship. Gopichand did it again and we had some really good players who played at the highest level including Sania Nehwal though she still has miles to go before she can reach Prakash or Gopi's level.

Thirdly, in India we don't have a complete ecosystem for all kinds of sports. For a sport like tennis, we need good coaches, trainers, experts in sports medicine, excellent courts to practice and above all good amount of money to invest to participate in world-class events before the players start earning enough to fund it themselves. We need a lot of sports entrepreneurs who will spot and groom the right talent from an early age. With most of our sports administration in the hands of politicians, I don't see much progress on this front unless the professionals who are funded privately step in. Prakash & Gopi opening badminton academies is a welcome move in that direction, but it has to happen in all sports.

Last but not the least, the key ingredient that is missing in most Indians is the killer-instinct to win. One Mr. Rathore won a silver medal in an Olympics and he never produced anything better after that. He seems to be satisfied with his achievement. In contrast, players like Serena Williams or a Pete Sampras kept on winning Grand slams, but they had the hunger for more. We Indians feel satisfied even before we reach the top forget about even remaining there even for a while. My sincere guess is that till we get a critical mass of very successful sports persons, the situation will remain like this.

In summary, it is the lack of killer instinct, absence of conducive ecosystem, inability to handle the fame well and social perception about sports as a career are some of the things that are responsible for India not producing good number of world-class sports persons proportional to our population. Things are changing for the better, but we still have a long way to go.

Why there is so much poverty in India?

I have always wondered why there is so much poverty in India while the country as a whole is marching very quickly to become a top-3 economy in the world. When you try to look deeper, most of the reasons have to do with our development model. If we talk in medical terms, the policy makers mostly focus addressing on the symptoms while the root cause is not addressed.

Firstly, the governance model that we have adopted, which is the British model requires the state to guarantee the basic necessities like education & health-care to everyone. But these are not taken care of even in the urban areas. The rural areas fare much worse because their so-called representatives bother only about their own welfare and not the welfare of the people who elected them. In the urban areas, though the people are more aware, the government's delivery mechanisms for the basic necessities do not reach the intended recipient due to large scale corruption.

Secondly, the role of non-governmental organizations in filling the delivery gaps also leaves much to be desired. The primary reason for this is that most of the non-governmental organizations are set up mostly to swindle money from donors. With very few organizations really working for the cause, the donors are also very reluctant to part with their money for such causes. This makes it much more difficult for the people below the poverty line to be able to work towards crossing the line.

So it is the corruption in the system which seems to be the real bottleneck. To make things worse, the corruption is so well entrenched in India, we experience it at all levels. In spite of all these hurdles, some people & organizations have managed to help people in need. But very few of these beneficiaries even think about giving back to the society which helped them prosper. Some of them don't even acknowledge the help. Hence, I am forced to conclude that the real reason is that the concept of giving back does not really exist in India and this is the root cause for continued poverty in India.

What can we do to see the change we want? We see a lot of people donating to the religious institutions very generously. Some of these institutions are really doing some good work, but most of them end up as tools in the hands of political class. The best work-around that I can think of is to encourage more professions to join these non-governmental organizations. In some of the more developed countries, people make a career working for these organizations. Once professionalism comes in, we will see a lot of innovative delivery mechanisms which are fool-proof.

We have also seen a lot of corporates creating trusts which will engage in improving the basic living conditions of people including education, health-care, poverty-alleviation etc. Some of these efforts involve professionals, but mostly after-retirement ones. This needs to change. The corporates need to attract younger crowd with better compensation so that more people are attracted towards these career options. We are seeing some action on this front, but a lot more needs to be done.

To conclude, there is continued poverty in India because the system is not making a concerted effort to provide for the basic necessities of the under-privileged. Some efforts in that direction lack professional touch and this is what is making these efforts un-successful on a large scale. If these efforts are run like any other corporate project with professionals managing it, we can expect to see some real difference on the ground. Till then India will continue to have the maximum number of people below poverty anywhere in the world.

Why India is not known for engineering excellence?

I have always wondered why it is always the German and the Japanese companies who take the honors when it comes to engineering excellence. When I explored the reasons, what I found was not very surprising. Let me delve into a couple of major reasons why we may not see engineering excellence in India in this generation.

Firstly, soon after India got independence, the political leaders of India wanted to build institutions of excellence and government took up the responsibility of building it all. The license raj ensured that the private enterprises got to build what government wanted them to build and not what market wanted. In effect, we followed the Russian model (before it broke). As a result, there was no incentive for anyone to build the best products with best workmanship. Hence till 1991, we all had to live with sub-standard products unless we had some friend abroad who brought us a Bose music system.

Secondly, even after the introduction of reforms in 1991, private enterprises went about signing joint-ventures with companies abroad which had excelled in building great products (read engineering excellence), but their engineers / workers were of the pre-reform mindset. For these engineers just making products which are usable was good enough. Hence we have Tata cars which have lot of innovation, but not great finish. Even when complete technology was brought from abroad, our engineers built products of inferior quality. I have a Sony music system in my house manufactured in India and having used a similar system in US (which was made in Japan), I can make out the difference in quality.

So far, I have seen only one exception in India and that is Hidesign, which makes leather products like purses, etc. This is the only company that I know of, in India which focuses on engineering excellence and delivers products known for world-class workmanship.

Overall, I have a strong feeling that till the current generation retires, we may not see engineering excellence in India and even that is doubtful. Building products like Mercedes Benz or a Bose music system which are known for engineering excellence is still not in our DNA. I guess it will take one whole generation post-1991 for us to at-least have a product from India known for engineering excellence. So far I have not seen any, but I am hopeful.

Terrorism in India: Do we plan to address it?

One year has passed after one of the most televised terror attacks that India has seen till date. The way it was handled showed how well prepared we were. But what is disturbing is the fact that nothing much has changed since then. The statement of the home minister of Maharashtra state classifying it as a "minor incident" turned out to be right when we try to find out the action taken to prevent such strikes from happening again.

What is the reason behind the "chalta hai" attitude of the law-makers towards such incidents? If we dig deeper, we can see a pattern. In every Indian state, we have some kind of terrorism. The only difference is that in some state it is internal (naxal,...) while in some it is external forces (taliban,...) which is active. Does our political establishment want the naxal or the taliban problems resolved? definitely not.

If we analyze further, it is not difficult to see why the political class whats a status quo to prevail. For example, in West-Bengal, the naxal problem is quickly running out of control. The state government seems to be afraid to act as they believe that they may lose votes if they do. The central government can crack the whip but they don't want to do because they don't want to disturb the momentum (to unseat the CPM) which is in their favour. Lot of people will continue getting killed in encounters in the name of terrorism and naxalism. Questions will remain whether the people killed in encounters were really terrorists / naxalites or folks caught on the wrong end of political class.

Do the police or the armed forces have the wherewithal to contain terrorism or naxalism? Yes they do. Punjab is a good example of what can be achieved if there is political will. But that still remains an exception for whatever reasons none of us would ever know in our lifetime. For instance, when some religious organization or a political outfit issues a fatwa or a similar threat, why do the governments of the day look the other way? The reason is very obvious.

In summary, all the problems that plague the country will continue to stay with us and will only keep getting bigger. In the same way, the fortunes of the political class will also keep getting bigger with every election. What should the rest of us do? Keep paying taxes and follow the rule of the land.