Editor,
In his article, “India in sweet spot to balance the act” (ST, January 30, 2016), K. R. Sudhaman has, rightly, pointed out that one of the major reasons for the present government securing majority in Lok Sabha election in 2014 is its promise to weed out corruption but so far there is no visible effort to end this menace so as to ensure the economy marched ahead. India is still stuck at the score of 38 points on a scale of 0-100, the same as in 2014 in the latest international corruption perception index 2015, prepared and published by the Transparency International just a few days ago. Corruption is like a hole in a bucket with which we cannot irrigate our garden. There is a close association between human development and anti-graft environment. We can easily see the fact if we compare the rank of a country in Human Development Index ( HDI ) with that of Corruption Perceptions Index ( CPI ).
After securing fourth position in HDI, Denmark has topped the CPI as the most corruption free country of the world. Netherlands (5th) and Canada (9th) have got identical rank in both indices. While the Asian teacher Singapore conquers eleventh rank in HDI and eighth in CPI, HDI topper Norway gets sixth rank in CPI. Similarly, The United States of America (HDI 8, CPI 16), The United Kingdom (HDI 14, CPI 10) , Sweden (HDI 14, CPI 3) , Switzerland (HDI 3, CPI 7) , New Zealand (HDI 9, CPI 4) , Luxembourg (HDI 19, CPI 10) and Germany (HDI 6, CPI 10) establish a close relationship between these two indices. It is also the same story down the ladder. China (HDI 90, CPI 83), India (HDI 130, CPI 76) and Pakistan (HDI 147, CPI 117) – all remain poor performers in both. The corrupt environment indicates a very narrow mindset of the people in power. They cannot have faith in cooperation and sharing. So, there are no takers for HDI booster inclusive growth in a graft raj. By giving a cruel slash to social sectors, the last year’s general budget has underlined the fact that Mars and moonstruck mindset cannot prioritise the welfare of people.
The budget has witnessed a downsizing in health and family welfare by 16 per cent and school education by 23 per cent. Moreover, it has cut down children’s welfare by 56 (!) per cent, women’s welfare by 25 per cent, social justice and empowerment by 5 per cent and rural development by 10 per cent. It is a case of dog eat dog at the lower rung of HDI and CPI indices. It is said charity begins at home. We cannot improve the lot of our people until we ourselves believe in the magic of cooperation and sharing that makes lives worth living. The malignant growth of a small part of our society is going to cause cancer to Mother India. The sooner we realise Tagore’s dictum, ‘Whom you push down will pull you down,’ the better for all of us. This realisation helps improve our position both in human development and corruption perception Indexes that generally go hand in hand. Now, let us see what is in store in the coming budget.
Yours etc.,
Sujit De, Kolkata
Rights are equal
Editor,
I am grateful to “The Shillong Times” for providing young people like me a platform to spill our grievances and speak against any injustice meted to our fraternity. I am happy now that my words are creating a ripple effect as someone has sent a missive confronting my views. Firstly, I would like to inform that in my rejoinder to Albert Thyrniang letter (ST Jan 29 2016), I have never labelled any allegations against him that he condones any form of violence. But I would also like to assure him that I also do not condone unbecoming acts of any organization be it RSS, GNLA,HNLC etc, that perpetrate heinous crimes against minorities. But in his letter to the editor on (ST Feb 02,2016) Thyrniang has craftily used the words(so called) ethnic cleansing and aberration to define crimes against minorities in Meghalaya. If we term crimes as aberrations then the Gujarat pogrom (2002), massacre of Sikhs in Delhi (1984) etc are all aberrations leaving no scope for justice for all those who suffered as a result of these macabre events. Further if the Constitution of India grants Right to Free speech to Fr. Thyrniang, it also grants the same to me which also means the right to dissent. Unfortunately the religious leaders of our country have not yet understood that the public domain provided by media is not a holy pulpit where every word uttered by them has to be taken as Gospel truth.
Yours etc
Sunil Khanal
Shillong2