Six lessons to learn from Bhagat Singh's life

First things first: Bhagat Singh DID NOT die on Valentine's Day.

Much as your Twitter friends would like you to believe that the revolutionary along with Sukhdev and Rajguru was hanged on February 14, the truth is that the three were executed on March 23, 1931 -- exactly 80 years ago from today.

Bhagat Singh was all of 23 when he was sentenced to the gallows. That's about the age when many of us start our lives. So what is it that we can learn from the revolutionary's life?

Without sounding preachy, here are a few things we can actually learn from his life.

1. Be your own person

There are larger lessons to learn from what happened on Twitter last month. Some genius decided that Bhagat Singh and co were hung on Valentine's Day and what followed was complete mayhem, with people singing praises of the men without so much as checking their facts first.

Sure, it's always easy to follow the mob. But it's also easy to get lost in the crowd, isn't it?

Be your own person. Don't follow the crowd just because they believe they're going in the right direction. Bhagat Singh could've well taken the beaten path. He didn't. That's one of the reasons why we're even talking about him 80 years after his death!

2. Find a purpose in life

Yes, we can see you cringe in your seat. No, we're not asking you to join the army or become a social servant.

Remember the time you were asked in that job interview about where you see yourself in the next five years?

That's the interviewer wanting to know if you have a purpose in your life. So ask yourself this question too.

For his age, Bhagat Singh knew precisely what he wanted out of life and got it. Not too much to ask of oneself either no?

3. Follow that purpose with passion

To what extent can you go to achieve your goal?

Can you go hungry for days or stay sleep deprived for hours to meet your aim?

How persistent are you following up on the targets you've set for yourself -- they could be as simple as losing weight or getting to a certain point in your career.

All successful people will tell you that they didn't get to where they are without struggle. And we are also speaking about people like Ratan Tata who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

Learn to go the whole hog, struggle and fight because there is pretty much no other way to be successful.

4. Procreation isn't the only thing you're born to do

Bhagat Singh never got married. He never had children either.

As difficult as it might be to believe, there is much more in life than to getting married and birthing children.

And again we don't mean you should take a broom and sweep the streets. Put the time and money you conserve to better use.

Adopt a child rather than have one of your own. We are a country of a heck of a lot of children. Adding another one to the population isn't helping anyone!

5. Read

If some estimates are to be believed, Bhagat Singh is said to have read about 300 books while he was imprisoned from April 8, 1929, to March 23, 1931.

Popular accounts also tell us that up until moments before he was to be executed, he was reading Lenin and asked the executioners to wait till he finished the book.

As cliched as it may sound, books open far more doors than you can imagine. So go beyond 140 characters and read.
Be aware -- politically and socially

Who is the governor of your state? Who is the vice president of India? If you find yourself answering these two simple questions without hitting a Google search, pat yourself on your back.

If not, maybe it's time you take a good hard look at yourself. Simply being good at your job isn't enough. Be aware of the world around you. It's the least you can do.

6. Take up a social cause

Giving back is the new black!

So jump on the bandwagon and do something for the country that has done so much for you.

Little things matter much -- adopt a stray, visit children’s home, visit your ageing neighbours. Really, it isn't very difficult.

Fundamental Rights

In our day to day busy life, we tend to forget our basic fundamental rights. Hence, just a recap.

The Constitution offers all citizens, individually and collectively, some basic freedoms. These are guaranteed in the Constitution in the form of six broad categories of Fundamental Rights, which are justiciable. Article 12 to 35 contained in Part III of the Constitution deal with Fundamental Rights. These are:

1. Right to equality, including equality before law, prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, and equality of opportunity in matters of employment;
2. Right to freedom of speech and expression, assembly, association or union, movement, residence, and right to practice any profession or occupation (some of these rights are subject to security of the State, friendly relations with foreign countries, public order, decency or morality);
3. Right against exploitation, prohibiting all forms of forced labour, child labour and traffic in human beings;
4. Right to freedom of conscience and free profession, practice, and propagation of religion;
5. Right of any section of citizens to conserve their culture, language or script, and right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice; and
6. Right to constitutional remedies for enforcement of Fundamental Rights.

KASHMIR

A Kashmiri, a reporter and a tough old soldier were captured by terrorists in Kashmir. The leader of the terrorists told them he'd grant each of them one last request before they were beheaded and dragged naked through the streets.

The Kashmiri said, 'Well, I'm a foodie, so I'd like one last plate of tandoori chicken.'

The leader nodded to an underling who left and returned with the Chicken.

The tourist ate it all and said, 'Now I can die content.'

The reporter said, 'I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe, someday, someone will hear it and know that I was on the job till the end.'
The leader directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder and the reporter dictated his comments.

He then said, 'Now I can die happy.'

The leader turned to the soldier and asked, 'And now, Havaldarji, what is your final wish?

'Kick me in the ass,' said the soldier.


'What?' asked the leader, 'Will you mock us in your last hour?'

'No, I'm NOT kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass,' insisted the soldier.

So the leader shoved him into the yard and kicked him in the ass.

The soldier went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9 mm pistol from inside his cammies and shot the leader dead. In the resulting confusion, he emptied his sidearm on six terrorists, then with his knife he slashed the throat of one, and with an AK-47, which he took from one of the already dead terrorists, sprayed the rest of the terrorists killing another 11. In a flash, all of them were either dead or fleeing for their lives.


As the soldier was untying the Kashmiri and the reporter, they asked him,

'Why didn't you just shoot them all in the first place? Why did you ask him to kick you in the ass?'

'Because' replied the soldier, 'if I had shot first, you two assholes would have reported that I was the aggressor and the root cause of all the blood shedding in Kashmir?'

... Such is the irony of Indian Democracy!!!!!!!

No One Killed Corruption

The consequences of abysmal governance and the lack of will to tackle to cancerous growth of corruption is having horrible consequences. Danger signs are there for all people to see, except the Dhithirashtras who rule.

The continuation of subsidized diesel has created a mafia industry which steals it. Official estimates of the stolen diesel are 40% of the subsidy of Rs 30,000 crores, or Rs 12,000 crores. An amount large enough to kill for! The mafia burnt to death a district collector who was seeking to prevent thieves caught in the act. Will the Government finally stop the nonsense of differential pricing which has negative consequences? Does loss of human life matter at all to those sitting in the rarefied political echelons of Delhi? Or, like Nero, are they still fiddling away? A far better, and oft suggested, way to distribute subsidies to those deserving it, is to use the technologies available, of smart cards. If so, the social ends could be met and the single, market determined price for diesel would obviate the need for theft and, by the way, of murder of officials preventing it. The fact that the Dhithirashtras of Delhi are not even talking of different delivery mechanism and a single price for diesel suggests that they have other considerations.

The evil portends for India emanate from the trend of citizens taking matters into their own hands. The wheels of justice need to be oiled. People are fed up of the guilty being let free because of poorly drafted charges by investigating agencies. It is for this reason that a vigilante knifed DSP Rathore, let off because the charges were poorly filed and slowly followed up on; the same vigilante knifed Dr Talwar, the father of murdered Aarushi, whose case has been closed following blotched up investigation. An MLA in Bihar was recently knifed to death by a woman who claimed to have been raped by him.

Poor governance also shows itself in poor planning for the future. When government does not do its job, the other pillar of our democracy steps in. The Madras High Court has given an order to shut down dyeing and bleaching units in Tirupur, which were badly polluting the Noyyal river. Some 50,000 workers will be out of a job and textile mills will see an increase in costs as these units shut down. Now, surely, pollution of the river is not an overnight phenomenon. Surely the units have been warned by the administrative branch of Government. Surely they, in turn, have bribed their way around it, continuing to pollute the river with impunity. Surely the political branch of Government turned the Dhithirashtric blind eye. The cost for all this laxity would be borne by the 50,000 unemployed workers. This is how bad governance and corruption affects, over time, the economy.

A similar thing will happen to the auto industry, perhaps 2 decades into the future. There is no official planning for the day of reckoning, when fossil fuel (crude oil) prices will peak as the world runs out of oil. Suddenly the capacities being added now, to produce cars, will need to be shut down, as petrol prices would be too high. A sensible Government would be busy building a network of efficient and affordable public transport and would discourage, through fiscal policy, the use of private transport.

A decade ago it was the Supreme Court that stepped in when the administrative branch of Government could not enforce norms to control vehicular pollution that was engulfing Delhi, and mandated the use of CNG. A responsible Government ought to have enforced it, instead of relying on the judiciary to clean up its misdeeds.

Now, the Supreme Court has stepped in again on the issue of black money and has asked why the Government does not inquire about its source. The Government claims that it is obliged to retain confidentiality of names of owners of Swiss/Lichstentien bank accounts but will recover its dues. Pardon me for being skeptical of that intention. It only means that it will give Government the option to pursue those people who are nettlesome to it and let go those who are a part of the coterie.

There is no denying that such rampant loot is a factor behind inflation, which is now a major cause of concern. Last week the RBI raised, as expected, its base rate by 25 basis points (0.25%) and will undoubtedly do so again. Foreign investors are selling in a big way, both on domestic as well as international factors. As re domestic factors, rising inflation and unbridled corruption are the main issues, as is the laxity of a spineless Government to tackle them. Globally, the US economy seems to be faring better, leading investors to shift part of the investments back home. The IMF has increased the forecast of global GDP growth to 4.4%.

The sensex dropped 611 points last week to 18395, for all the reasons mentioned above which leaving investors are filled with dismay. The Nifty dropped 184 to end at 5512. Corporate results for the quarter ended December are not too bad, but investor psychology has become so.

The sensex is above a crucial support level of 18,000. If this is breached, as seems likely, given the investor mood, the next stop is 16,000-16,500. Politically all parties are busy trying to bring down the other, instead of bringing up the nation.

Here's why the corrupt need not fear the law

The accompanying article explains just what is wrong with the mechanism we currently have to deal with corruption. Lest you think that is just a theoretical argument, take a look at the official data on the subject and your doubts should be settled. The rapidly diminishing circles depicted alongside show how just a fraction of those accused of corruption actually end up getting nailed.

The data presented here is all from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The first set of circles pertains to the status of investigations by the state anti-corruption or vigilance wings under the Prevention of Corruption Act and relevant section of the IPC.

In 2008, the latest year for which data is available, there were 8,554 cases for investigation across all states and Union territories. Of these, 7,292 were actually investigated during the year, while 2,543 resulted in chargesheets. In other words, only about a third of the cases investigated resulted in chargesheets as a proportion of the cases available for investigation, the figure drops even further to about 30%.

But chargesheeting is only the first stage in the tortuous road to nailing the accused. The next set of circles depicts what happens to those being tried for corruption. In 2008, there were 29,783 people facing such trials.

Of these, trials were completed only for 2,985 people. Of those, 977 were convicted. That translates again to about a third of all those whose trials were completed being convicted, but when compared to those facing trial, the proportion drops to a mere 3%.

Is this reading too much into one year's figures? After all cases tried in one year might lead to conviction in a subsequent year. True, but the fact is that we looked at figures for the last few years and found that in each case these proportions are roughly the same.

Now, let's look at happens when cases are reported for departmental action against the accused. That's the third set of circles. In 2008, there were 736 such people, of whom 268 were punished in some form or the other by their respective departments. But only 65 of them lost their jobs. That means less than one in eleven reported for action actually were sacked.

Put all these figures together and the picture you get makes it clear why public servants can indulge in corrupt practices with such impunity in our country. The chances of the investigation leading to charge sheeting are slim, even if they do get charge sheeted the chances of the trial concluding any time soon are even slimmer and finally when the trial does conclude the odds are on being let off.

A final thought. We are dealing here with a few thousand people being investigated or tried in any given year. Now consider the fact that there are about 10 million central and state government employees. Assuming conservatively that just 1% of them are corrupt, that would mean about a lakh of people indulging in corruption.

With less than 1,000 getting convicted, the corrupt can be 99% sure they'll get off. That's the problem.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Heres-why-the-corrupt-need-not-fear-the-law/articleshow/7330860.cms