Nellai Suresh puts in black and white

Today morning, when I was walking along the Marina Beach with my wife, I was thrust a free tabloid "Jolly Times" like every Sunday. What caught my attention was an article on "Globalization has widened the divide between the haves and have nots". Thuglak editor Cho rightly said in the 38th Anniversary meeting that newspaper editors took it upon themselves the role of evangelists for Communism and they felt justified in their role only then. This is another example of the Communist rhetoric of blaming it on globalization. If the divide has widened, it is not because of any "ism" or "zation". It is our corrupt politicians and authorities who have ensured that the gap widens. The recently introduced PMRY (the Prime Minister's Rojgar Yojana) is an example. An article in the Hindu talks about how it has ensured a specific number of days of work and wages in a few districts of Tamilnadu where the honest Collector supervised the project and how it failed in UP and Bihar districts. It is the same story right from Indira Gandhi's 20-point program days. Rajiv Gandhi openly remarked of only droplets reaching the poor and middlemen eating away. If we had rectified these errors, if we had eliminated the middlemen, the gap would have been closed long back.

On the contrary, globalization has resulted in creation of 2 million odd jobs in the IT industry alone within a decade or two. Leave alone automobile or textile industries. Two million jobs!!! Even during their "glorious" days, the banking industry had just 1 million workers. Probably the only bigger segment is the Railways and the Government sector. Why blame globalization for the sheer ineptitude of government and politicians? Is it a punching pad?

Eliminate politicians like Raj Thackeray who divide the country like what V P Singh did during the Mandal days. The poor will become richer.

The series continues.

If you want to construct a new house or change the front elevation of your house, do not worry about storing the sand or brick or any other building material. Don't search for space. Use the public road. Even if it is just 10 feet wide, stack them on the ublic road. People will "adjust" or will take a different route. Do it with impunity. If the ward officer questions you, throw some crumbs at him. Even a meagre 100 rupees will do. Make merry.

The biggest offenders in Chennai nowadays are the big corporate houses.Especially the IT behemoths and other smaller manufacturing companies. Great that they run their own fleet of buses for ferrying their employess from home and back. This definitely relieves the public transport utilities of their burden to a great extent. But there is a price the society pays for this. All these buses, their numbers running into hundreds do not have a parking space. They use all the roads to park their vehicles. These and the buses of engineering colleges are a menace on the road. They are licensed to kill, it appears. And the traffic jams they create is beyond comprehension. We used to frown at public transport drivers in Chennai and water lorry drivers. But this tribe has surpassed eveybody else in causing misery to the general public. Any proof needed? Please drive through the Pallavaram, Thuraipakkam ring road or the IT corridor between 8:30 AM and 11 AM. The news is that one company is creating a facility for 30000 people. Even if half of them commute on their own, the company will have to provide buses for at least 15000 people. This means 300 buses will be ferrying people only for this company. Does anybody in the government give a damn about the strain this is going to cause on the infrastructure? Will any body educate these drivers and the owners of these buses to drive carefully following the rules? Will any authority ensure that they do not use the public roads as the garage for parking, cleaning and maintaining these vehicles?

Impunity again rules over.

With a purpose, I gave a serial number in the title. Whatever I observe, where people flout the rules with impunity, I am going to give vent to my feelings. It starts from small things. Jumping traffic signals has almost become the rule. I am not going to rave about that. I have learnt to live with that. Nowadays I drive not only for myself but for others too. But there are other instances. Like the other day, a man living in my street (in a Chennai suburb, Guindy)was not willing to listen to me when I protested against his action of using my neighbourhood as his cow shed. He brings a few cows from his herd and ties them around poles near my house to milch the cows. He leaves them there for the whole day. All the cow dung and urine is splattered around in the neighbourhood resulting in proliferation of mosquitoes and flies. I even pointed out that his own young children would be at risk of contracting some disease. When I threatened him with taking it up with the Municipality, he started budging. He has now started doing the same a little farther away from my house so that I cannot object.

This is an exapmle of impunity this generation shows towards rule of law, civic cooperation and care for neighbours.

My observations will continue