Thursday, December 23, 2010

Arindam Chaudhuri Analyses Why BJP should not and cannot afford to give up the demand for a JPC Probe


Prof Rajita Chaudhuri follow some off-beat trends like organizing make up sessions


JPC WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY GET NDA BACK TO POWER IN 2014

Arindam Chaudhuri
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri
Rs. 1,76,000 crores and counting! The scam is the biggest in the country ever – or rather, the sum total of all the other scams (that have been exposed) put together, multiplied by two and more! If not a joint parliamentary committee probe now, then when? A great democracy is one with a thriving opposition. After the last elections, I had raised a question. Is this the end of the road for the BJP for long? It looked so. BJP was stuck on its Hindutva mantra, while the Congress promised youth, which looked progressive and could connect with the masses better! After all, the Hindus themselves are so coexistential that they don’t like any communal stress in their lives. But then, complacency is the mother of all failures. And failure is the mother of all successes! Congress did two big blunders. Firstly, in a haste to promote Rahul Gandhi as its future leader – and in its fear that charismatic speakers like Jyotiradiya or Sachin Pilot or Milind Deora may overshadow the son – the Congress started destroying its biggest trump card, the youth factor, which had made it look so bright. The Congress saw to it that none of them had the courage to hog any limelight or be in any platform of importance; so much so that the public has virtually forgotten Congress’ youth brigade. And the truth is whatever the slavish media in India writes (it praises every rare semi-meaningful word that Rahul says as if it’s straight from Julius Ceaser). Rahul Gandhi, unfortunately, is still not good enough to single-handedly lead the Congress yet. Like they have done with Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Congress could have made best use of Rahul as the silent guy, while the other better speakers managed the party.

The second mistake is perhaps bigger and more dangerous. Protecting a dynasty may ruin a party but abetting corruption ruins the nation. The Congress ruined its Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s personal image of crystal clear integrity by entering into a series of mega scams. A majority of population in India, being illiterate, doesn’t understand policies much; but they understand ‘chori’. I believe a conspiracy by V. P. Singh created a wave in India which made him the Prime Minister from a nobody, thanks only to an allegation of corruption that he could make the public believe in. Rajiv was a man of definite personal integrity and was highly progressive and had started an anti-corruption drive in India against Indian businessmen. V.P. Singh was a friend of the industry, being a past commerce minister, and catching the moment, he made the Bofors allegation. Rajiv – a man of great progressive thoughts, great charisma and a Gandhi who had earlier swept the elections on a massive sympathy wave – lost the elections. I would say for no reason but a wave around corruption that the masses were falsely made to believe. Rajiv Gandhi, I believe, was personally not corrupt (for party funds, even the most honest politician depends on sources; and Rajiv might have depended on a single alternative instead of a number of Indian businessmen). But can I say the same about the current Congress? Well, only a joker can. Everyone else knows what’s happening in the Congress. Yes, there is a Manmohan Singh who is clean. But he sits atop a pile of corrupt people. CWG, Adarsh, 2G, it goes on... personal wealth creation at its best; and wealth being stacked offshore. The Supreme Court rightly asked, was the Prime Minister sleeping? Being personally clean as a leader is only half the job done. You have to make a system that cleans up the whole system.

And in this failure of Congress to provide clean governance, comes the hope for BJP and NDA for 2014. Forget Hindutva; concentrate on the massive dacoity of India. In every sphere. The masses understand it and they are totally convinced today that the UPA has started rotting inside out. There seems to be a sudden wave in the Congress on why should Mukesh Ambani remain the only one with 3 lac crore rupees. Gone are the days of the ‘hundred crore’ ministers. If figures are to be believed, today the key ministers are raking in thousands of crores. The country is being looted and sold off to the highest bidder... Oops, I got it wrong here – the lowest bidder, to be precise, who gives the highest kickback. There is absolutely no reason for anyone to accept and tolerate this. And this is where the need of opposition in a democracy comes in. The BJP needs to keep up its demand for a JPC probe. Take to the streets but the JPC is a must. And the probe must be totally transparent with complete media access during hearings. That’s the way it happened in Watergate, the Iran Contra, the Clinton case. That’s how it happens in real democracies. With the Assange case, it’s clear that America is unfairly using ownership of web domains – controlled by America – to close down various websites in order to hound and shut off WikiLeaks. India could lead the way in showing what a democracy is about for a change.

The JPC is also the only way everyone can be brought to the questioning table. Every other agency can be manipulated and managed in this country by the party in power. As I wrote in my previous editorial on the Radia tapes, the Indian media is right now too busy doing what it does best: go behind glamourised cases and magnify them to grab eyeballs and totally mislead and misinform the public. The part which was leaked till then proved nothing. There are lobbyists everywhere. The real issue here is that the government is caught in a web of corruption – perhaps facilitated by a lobbyist. Here we are talking about the issue of Rs.1,76,000 crores; and there we are speaking of a few stories that were being attempted to be planted here and there... What a mind blowing diversion from the real issue. It’s hilarious the way the media is happily going on and on bashing individual journalists (glamourous, easy preys and perfect vent for pent up jealousies), who cannot hit back, instead of hitting out at the real people who are behind this scam. What the opposition and media need to do right now is demand for the JPC probe, for that’s what the Indian masses need and want. Of course, a few weeks back, I myself wrote that our Parliamentarians have no right to waste the taxpayers’ money due to non-functioning of the Parliament. But as the magnitude of the scam gets unearthed, it’s clear that there’s more of tax payers’ money at stake in the scam than in the non-functioning of the Parliament. The masses, the tax payers, they have a right to a clean regime and the opposition must help them get their rights. That’s what makes a functional propeople democracy. And why not? After all, this perhaps is the sure-shot route for the NDA to be back in power in 2014 – as I said, nothing works with the aam junta better than the corruption plank.
This article is sourced from PR-CANADA.net, click here to read compelete article.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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IIPM BBA MBA Institute: Student Notice Board
Run after passion and not money, says Arindam Chaudhuri
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IIPM Lucknow – News article in Economic Times and Times of India
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Monday, December 20, 2010

IIPM Prof Arindam Chaudhuri on the Indian Judicial System


Prof Rajita Chaudhuri follow some off-beat trends like organizing make up sessions

To change this ‘demonocracy’ to a democracy, we must all join hands and demand for a judiciary that is not rotting and rusting!

Last week I was very fortunate to be a part of this wonderful, moving and inspirational seminar on the ‘Power of One’ (coverage of the same is there after my editorial)! The speakers included Tarun Tejpal, who so very inspirationally spoke about the founding fathers of our nation, their vision and saga of sacrifices. Indeed, hearing Tarun speak is always a pleasure, just as much as seeing him – a real life hero of public interest journalism in India – always is! His words had the power of making me forget for a while that the same Nehru, whose birthday is ironically celebrated as Children’s Day in India, founded an India where today, seven times more kids suffer from malnutrition than they do in China – something Tarun himself quoted. He spoke of how we shouldn’t forget where India resides – in the villages. And the onus was on us to fight for the right cause. He spoke of things that at least we never forget at The Sunday Indian. There was Neelem Katara who spoke next in the most moving manner on her battle to get justice for her son against the might of one of the biggest dons of north India. At one moment, she was confident; at another, she was hurt and tender; and yet, at all moments, she was brave! Sitting there, I was inspired and in tears – alternatively hoping that one day we could be instrumental in bringing an end to this demonocracy that prevails in India. Then of course spoke Rajinder Kachroo, the man who lost his son Aman Kachroo to the menace of ragging. He spoke how ragging was criminal – I couldn’t agree more. His journey to get stringent rulings passed against ragging was the story of sheer determination; and it made me more determined to keep our crusade to weed out the cause of ragging from its roots! Then came Binu Chandran, the real life hero who got Ghazi Baba, the dreaded Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist to his end. Binu did that through his saga of physical bravery, where the decision to be taken was clear – to send his people to fight or to lead from the front. He chose the latter and got this country glory. Hearing Binu was super inspirational but I knew it was beyond us to be a real part of any such battle. Yet, I kept reminding myself that the pen is surely no less mighty than grenades. Finally, of course, we had the water crusader of India Rajendra Singh speaking! His sense of humour floored all of us; yet, everyone got the simple message strong and clear – that we needed to give our children rivers and water instead of ‘gandaa nalaas’ and droughts – a cause our social wing the Great Indian Dream Foundation (GIDF) is very passionate about. The five speakers showed us the power of one in a country like India! Through their sheer grit, determination, bravery and commitment, they individually had indeed made a positive difference to this nation. The session was followed by a great round of questions and answers, mainly focusing around the issues of bravery versus fear and the need to be brave!

And then came the most difficult challenge, to get up and speak. Speak about the power of one; that is, about bravery versus fear and yet not spare the reasons behind the sheer requirement of these brave crusades. Listening to them had recharged my brain. While I was in total awe of these amazing people, I knew very well that forget taking the all-or-nothing risk of putting everything at stake for journalism of public interests that Tarun epitomized, I was not even sure whether I – if I had been a friend of Nitish Katara – wouldn’t have myself turned a hostile witness were I to face the threat of the underworld mafia. I didn’t know if I would have had enough determination to keep pursuing the courts to change ragging laws, had I been in the place of Rajinder Kachroo. Sixteen years back, my younger brother died in a road accident – the sorrow killed me – but I didn’t do anything at all to make the Indian roads safer or get laws enacted to make it compulsory for the pillion rider to wear a helmet – though fortunately the law got enacted on its own. Of course, I was candid enough to realize that I couldn’t have done anything remotely as brave as what Binu Chandran had done. Yet, I refused to believe that I was not brave; or that, given the right environment, I wouldn’t stand up for the right cause. I refused to accept that I was fearful. I knew there was something that was missing and was required to complete the story... some realities we must be aware of, and should take up as a serious cause to fight for! Perhaps only health, education and employment come ahead of the issue I’m going to discuss. And that is the demand for a judicial system that can alter the concept of India and bring us a huge lot closer to a real democracy rather than the ‘demonocracy’ that we live in.
This article is sourced from PR-CANADA.net, click here to read compelete article.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM Prof Rajita Chaudhuri's Snaps
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Run after passion and not money, says Arindam Chaudhuri
Award Conferred To Irom Chanu Sharmila By IIPM

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Friday, December 03, 2010

IIPM Prof Arindam Chaudhuri on 'Media Houses and Journalists'


IIPM BBA MBA Institute: Student Notice Board

Arindam Chaudhuri argues why the Radia tapes prove nothing and why Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi remain two of India’s best journalists

When Barack Obama was running for the US presidency, the common joke in America was that win or lose, Obama was sure to get a job with MSNBC! And when he won, the joke was that “all the channels declared Barack Obama as the US President at 11 in the night; MSNBC declared him the winner six months back.” That’s representative of how blatantly MSNBC had lobbied to make Obama the US President. And every media house with an ideology and conviction does so. Yes, that’s the job of media houses and of journalists with character, ideology and convictions.

Wake up to reality, my friends! In UK and USA elections, newspapers rally behind individual parties till the very end – openly. And it’s not because the party owns the media house. During the very next elections, the media houses could support the opposition. That’s how it is in all true democracies where media doesn’t fear a backlash if the party they don’t support comes to power. India is, of course, not a democracy. Behind the illusion of democracy, demons – almost one and all – rule this country, making it a unique “demonocracy”. What the government of India does is that they create cases similar to what they did with Tehelka, and makes it clear that if you try to expose the government, they will get back at you. So, before elections, Indian media – one and all (unless in regional cases where parties themselves own media) – is always polite about the ruling party even if they per se support the opposition. And this, because they fear that in case the ruling party returns post elections, they’ll have to face the music! Even the largest media house, the Times of India, has not been spared in the past, with Ashok Jain being harassed to his literal death with cases being fabricated against him for trying to act smart with the government! Compare this with the nine page special feature that The Sun ran in 1992 on the day UK elections with the headlines commenting, “If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights?”

Bulbs 1 - The legal lobbying industry in United Kingdom is estimated to be worth $1.9 billion, employing over 14,000 people

Bulbs 2 - When Malaysia intended to refurbish its tainted image, the then PM mahathir Mohamed paid $1.2 million to get a date with Bush

Bulbs 3 - when a negative wave starts on any topic, the intelligent word rarely finds any space in the world of vitriolic social media

This article is sourced from PR-CANADA.net, click here to read compelete article.

For More Info, Visit below mentioned articles.
Run after passion and not money, says Arindam Chaudhuri
IIPM Prof Rajita Chaudhuri: The New Age Woman
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Consulting

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