FACTS ABOUT OUR JUDICAIRY……UNBELIEVABLE BUT TRUE.

Ever wondered as to how many days our courts work. The answer to this is unbelievable. Consider the following information:

 Working days of the Supreme Court of India …. around 185 days….pending cases---around 40,000

Working days of the High Courts in states……….around 210 days….pending cases---around 39 lakhs

Working days of the other courts…………………….Same as the High Courts of the respective states---pending cases around 2.63 crores

The summer holidays and the winter holidays in courts was instituted by the British but we continue to persist with them 64 years after the British have gone.

And the courts sit on high moral grounds and pass strictures against all.

It is high time that they look at themselves and curtail their holidays. No one denies the fact the number of judges per million in India is low and that impedes the delivery of justice. Coupled to this is the antiquated justice system that consumes large amounts of time and delays justice further. At the same time, the lesser number of working days is also another important factor that adds to these delays. But will the courts ever curtail their privilege? I have my own doubts.  

GANDHI OR BOSE.......WHO DO I PREFER AND WHY.

Today I was going through a book in which there was a mention of Subhash Chandra Bose. Although I knew much about Bose I thought I should know more about him and referred to Wikipedia. Wikipedia contained a lot of information on Bose and I abridged it for myself which I have given below.

As per my opinion he had been a great leader but had dictatorial tendencies and is also intolerant. He assaulted his own professor because he made some anti Indian comments. He tried to take Hitler’s help and his Indian Legion soldiers swore allegiance to Hitler’s command. When Japanese funding of INA slowed down he imposed higher taxation on Indian populations in Malaysia and Singapore and sometimes extracted it by force. Hitler used him as long as Bose was with him and so did the Japanese.

Despite his excellent leadership qualities which fired up people, I would rather prefer Gandhi to Bose anytime.

CONCISE BIO OF BOSE ABRIDGED FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Subhash Chandra Bose was born in 1897 in Cuttack to Janakinath Bose and Prabhabati Debi. His father was an advocate. He was the 9th amongst the 14 children.

After schooling in Cuttack Bose topped the matriculation examination of the Calcutta province in 1911. He then joined the Presidency college at Calcutta for his BA but was later expelled as he attacked one professor Oaten for making some anti India comments.

He then completed his BA in philosophy from the Scottish Church College , Calcutta. He enrolled in the Cambridge University in 1919 where he did his BA in Honors but with just average marks.

He got selected to the Indian Civil Service but resigned from the appointment as a protest against the British Government. When he came back to India, Chittaranjan Das became his mentor in the Congress.

In 1923 he was elected the President of the all India Youth Congress and also the secretary of the Bengal State Congress.

He was the editor of the Paper Dehbandhu founded by Chittaranjan Das. He also worked as the CEO of the municipal corporation of Calcutta when CR Das became the Mayor in 1924.

In a roundup of nationalists in 1925 Bose was arrested and sent to Mandalay prison in Burma. In 1927 on being released from prison he became the General Secretary of the Congress party.

Bose was again arrested and jailed for civil disobedience and when he was released he became the mayor of Calcutta in 1930. During this tenure he visited Europe and saw both communism and fascism in action.

In 1938 Bose contested as the Congress president and won. This despite the fact that Bose is ideologically opposed to Gandhi who opposed his candidature. The rift also divided Nehru and Bose.

Bose was re elected as a President in 1939 over Pattabhi Seetaramayya who was favored by Gandhi. Due to opposition from the followers of Gandhi Bose ultimately had to resign as the President of the Congress. He then organized the Forward Bloc whose influence is confined to Bengal alone.

Most of the Congress leaders of that time felt it would be better to wait till Britain was through with the 2nd world war and they would get independence. Bose was opposed to this and thought that the political instability in Britain during the war should be taken advantage of. He believed that Independent India needed at least 20 years of socialist authoritarianism.

His ideas were totally against what Gandhi believed. While Gandhi said one should show the other cheek if one is slapped on one cheek, Bose believed that if someone slapped you once then you should slap them twice.

There were two cases pending against him and he felt that the British would not let him leave the country. He then escaped to Germany via Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.

He founded the Free India Center in Berlin and created the Indian legion consisting of 4500 Indian POW’s taken by the Axis powers during their fight with the British in North Africa. Its members swore allegiance to both Bose as well as Adolf Hitler. The following is the oath sworn by them:

"I swear by God this holy oath that I will obey the leader of the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the German armed forces in the fight for India, whose leader is Subhash Chandra Bose".

Bose was also prepared for an invasion of India by Nazi troops spearheaded by Azad Hind Fouz through Russia. Hitler did not show much interest for Indian independence and Bose decided to leave Germany in 1943.

The Indian National Army was founded by Capt. Mohan Singh in 1942 at Singapore with the Japanese POW’s of Indian origin. This was with the support of the Independence league headed by Rash Behari Bose. The first INA was disbanded when Mohan Singh felt that the Japanese were using the INA as a mere propaganda tool.

The idea of INA was again revived with the arrival of Bose in 1943 and rash Behari Bose handed over the organization to Subhash Bose.

Bose was able to rekindle the idea and received a massive support from the people of Indian origin form South East Asia who not only enlisted in the army but also gave financial support. At its height it consisted of 85,000 troops including a separate women’s unit, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment headed by Captain Lakshmi Swaminathan.

At a rally of Indians in Burma 1944 Bose gave the famous call “Give me blood and I shall give you Freedom”. The Azad Hind Government was recognized by the Axis powers.

The INA helped the Japanese by creating diversionary tactics when the Japanese were advancing to Manipur, Imphal and Kohima.

When the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were taken by the Japanese forces, the provisional Government with INA was established there with Lt.Col.A.D.Loganathan appointed as Governor General. Despite this the Japanese navy remained in control of the administration. Enraged with the lack of control Loganathan later relinquished his authority.

The Japanese along with the INA brigades were defeated in their effort to take the northeast. Bose expected that the Indian troops in British service would desert to INA during the battle. Nothing of the sort happened and on the contrary troops started deserting the INA . Japanese funding for the INA decreased and Bose was forced to raise taxes on the Indian populations of Malaysia and Singapore sometimes extracting money by force.

The INA was forced to pull back with the retreating Japanese army. With the fall of Rangoon the Bose’s government ceased to be a political entity. A large proportion of the INA troops surrendered when Rangoon fell. Japans surrender at the end of the war led to the total surrender of the INA.

Bose is alleged to have died in a plane crash in Taiwan, on 18 August 1945 while an route to Tokyo and possibly then the Soviet Union. The Japanese plane he was travelling on had engine trouble and when it crashed Bose was badly burned, dying in a local hospital four hours later. His body was then cremated. This version of events is supported by the testimonies of a Captain Yoshida Taneyoshi, and a British spy known as "Agent 1189.

The lack of a body has led to many theories have been put forward concerning his possible survival.

IS A VOTE ALL THAT IMPORTANT IN INDIA.......

Votes are being counted in a few states today and the people wait with an expectation but is t really worth it? 

Jaganmohan Reddy the son of our Ex CM Rajasekhar Raddy who had showered money over all is constituency  and who has enormous muscle power is winning with a huge majority. Is this democracy...I do not know........

All the press cries hoarse about the value of our vote in our country. But is our vote really that valuable?

Vote serves a critical process in Democracy. It is the lever with which a representative of the people is elected to serve them (at least technically). Yes, it is very valuable where a democracy functions. But does democracy really function in India at all?

I think it is not Democracy but a great scam in its guise that is being practiced on the people of India. Without exception all the parties use caste and religion as a lever for electing representatives. Candidates are chosen on the basis of the caste and religion and region they belong to and how many kinsmen of their caste/religion/region there are in the constituency. Add to this the so called loyalty to the party boss, the amount of money the candidate can spend and also the muscle power of the candidate to terrorize people into voting for them.

The words called capability and the willingness to serve the people are simply buried in the dust and do not count at all. Even a party like Loksatta in my state AP which avowedly professes clean politics cannot desist from giving statements pandering to certain sections of the society.

Splitting people into caste, religious and regional groupings would only make them see themselves as a separate entity. This enhances their alienation from the mainstream rather than integrate them. Seeing them other groups also follow suit and this can only lead to tensions in the society which may lead to fissiparous tendencies. In the present day there is only one criterion to judge the people who really require state aid and that is money. In our society if a person has money no one mentions his caste or region or religion and even murder becomes acceptable. The distinctions between people should therefore be based on money and nothing else. There would then be only 2 classes, the rich and the poor irrespective of anything else. The poorer classes should then be favored by the Government. Yes, this as some people point out is difficult to implement because many people under disclose their income. In that case the law should be very strict and any wrong disclosure should be treated as a crime and made a non bail able offence. Separate tribunals should be set up to treat such cases with a set time limit to decide on the judgment. Severe punishments should be given to such offenders.

Do any of our great politicians have the guts to say that they would like to help all poorer people irrespective of caste, religion or region? The latest hot topic on the agenda of all political parties is “Social Justice”. As per them, this means helping people belonging to certain castes only and not others even if they are beggars. I call it “Social Discrimination” and not “Social Justice.” This is discrimination against the poorer sections of the OC’s keeping them outside the purview of state aid even if they are miserably poor. Does any politician (irrespective of his caste) have the guts to say that this is incorrect? Why don’t they say that castes should inter marry and with time they should be eliminated altogether? Caste has outlived its utility and the time has come to banish it from society. It is rather unfortunate that the so called intellectuals in our society do not even raise their finger against the caste system in India which is blooming day by day.

And what about sexual discrimination? I was shocked to see an article stating that the percentage of women in the Indian legislatures is a mere 8% compared to some 18% for Pakistan which is considered to be a Muslim orthodox state. Even Nepal which is economically much backward than India has more representation of women in the legislatures than India. A very sorry state of affairs indeed which does not speak very well of our democratic system. There are numerous parties based on caste, religion and region, each one trying to help their own supporters tearing the Indian society into numerous groupings.

And what about usage of muscle power, money and liquor in the elections. Is any party immune from it excluding the Loksatta which is clean on this account. Loksatta has a very minor voter base which perhaps reveals the mental setup of the society. I am sure that they would be some similar parties operating in other states and I am also sure that their voter base would be as minimal.

Is this the so called Democracy which is supposed to give equal justice to its entire people irrespective of any affiliation? Democracy is a great system if it works, but in India I think it has failed miserably. People may say that India has remained free of Dictatorship and army rule because of Democracy. But is having elections to elect your representatives alone is Democracy? Once elected the representatives then behave as bad as any dictator. People are shooed off the roads because these gentlemen are traveling, in some cases traffic is held up and they get a priority over an ordinary citizen in everything. The law and order machinery is ready to accommodate them in every way and investigations are done in a way to suit them. They then loot the public money and fill their coffers. Democracy indeed this is not, it is a dictatorship in disguise!

That is why I do not consider the vote to be all that precious. It would be precious only when we really have a choice to elect a person who is ready to serve the country, not when he is more interested in serving himself. Even the candidates of a clean party like Loksatta are not immune to this.

The only choice we have in election is to elect a representative of A party or B party or C party. When all of them have the same characteristics with very minor differences, what choice does the voter really have? Whether it is A or B or C they are unified in one goal and that is of helping themselves and their supporters. Like all other ideas getting assimilated into the way the Indian way of thinking, Democracy has also changed its meaning in the Indian context. But the malaise seems to lie with the society and the leaders who represent it, rather than the system called Democracy.

I do not feel enthusiastic to cast my vote in such a system.

Lik

EDUCATION IN ANDHRA PRADESH........PAIN OR GAIN???

I am from AP and had all my education in AP. When we studied, education gave us sufficient time to enjoy. True, there was pressure during examinations, but once they are over, the fun continued. I was more fond of athletics than studies and was running some 10 KM a day in the morning and used to practice jumps and javelin in the evenings. And of course there was cricket to be played.

In contrast the present day education in AP till intermediate has become extremely competitive and time consuming. Children do not have any time for any extracurricular activities. Most of the colleges do not have any play grounds anyway.

I think this transition took place with setting up of educational institutions specially for appearing in the competitive examinations like IIT, AIEEE and BITSAT apart from the states own EAMCET. The pioneer in intensive coaching for IIT is the Ramiah coaching center set up in 1985. It has been very successful and each year since inception a number of students for this institution got selected for IIT. Institutions like Narayana and Srichaitanya followed suit. These institutions initially started as junior colleges that gave coaching for EAMCET( competitive exam for entering into the Engg. colleges in the state), IIT and AIEEE and BITSAT examinations. They concentrated on intensive coaching of the students . Their efforts started paying off and the number of students getting selected for IIT, BITSAT and AIEEE from the state went up substantially. They then branched off and now have a reach into every nook and corner of Andhra Pradesh. taking their lead many other educational institutions also took the same path.

Last year almost 25% of the IIT seats were bagged by students from AP. This is a great achievement considering that AP accounts only for 7% of the Indian population. I do not have the statistics about the AIEEE but in the case of BITSAT too the success rate is very high and 25% of all BITS students are from Andhra Pradesh.

Due to these institutions more and more students wanted to take up Engineering stream related courses in Intermediate (Maths, Physics and Chemistry) and to cater to those who did not get into the elite institutions a number of Engineering colleges have sprung up all over the state. Andhra Pradesh presently has some 700+ engineering colleges with a student intake of over 2,00,000 every year. This is about 18% of the total Engineering seats in India ( around 11,00,000).

Engineering is being given more preference than medicine both by the students themselves as well as the parents because engineering concludes in just 4 years and many candidates are able to get campus placements.

In the case of medicine, one has to give 5 years 6 months for its completion. But in the present day only MBBS does not hold much value and one has to MD which may take another 2/ 3 years. Moreover the MD seats would only be around 10 to 15% of the MBBS seats and every student may not be able to secure a seat. And after the MD one may go in for the super specialty which may consume another 2 years. This means one has to study for some 10 years to establish in medicine whereas for Engineering the time is much shorter. Moreover getting an Engineering seat also opens up avenues for going to the US where there is a great demand for software engineers.

That was the reason why last year only 50,000 students appeared for the entrance exam for medicine against 300,000+ for engineering. From the 1990’s many engineering students from AP have gone to the US , did their MS there and settled down. The bulk of the visas to USA from the Chennai consulate have gone to the students from AP. This also has increased the fascination for engineering. This fascination for engineering helped the students of AP substantially and this was the creation of the above coaching institutions. Therefore, the credit of making AP an engineering powerhouse goes to those institutions as well as the then Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu who freely gave permission for setting up new private engineering colleges. This policy was continued by the later governments.

The institutions have also done some damage too in the process. They started drilling the students right from morning till evening holding exams every week . Their network has now spread to all over AP and they have also established many branches in India at places like Delhi, Chandigarh, Karnataka ,Rajasthan, Himachal, Jharkhand and MP. All their branches were given the same exam paper each week and their internal rank in the state and also all India is given to the students every week. For the 2nd year Intermediate students their class timings would be from 8 in the morning till 8+ in the night. This is now putting an undue stress on the students. Every parent in AP now wants to see their children in the IIT’s, BITS or NIT’s and the parents expectations are putting in further stress. Average children cannot get into the IIT’s and expecting them to do so would only bring down their morale and they may break down under pressure and even start hating studies.

While the role of these institutions in promoting education in AP is appreciated, perhaps a line has to be drawn now and some restriction of hours by the Government would be more appropriate. If the child wants to study he/she can do so at home on his own interest and keeping them in college for 12 hours a day I feel is criminal. The value of education should be understood by the student and he/she should not feel it as drudgery. Other things like sports, cultural events should also be encouraged along with studies and the student coming out should be made into an enthusiastic and fun loving individual rather than an automaton who pores over books most of the time doing nothing else.

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