Justice and not Hypocrisy Please.

It looks like a cruel joke when Administrators of this country give advice to other countries (Australia, in the Haneef case) that Haneef should get justice, he cannot be detained for long etc.

A big BIG Joke. It is common for undertrails in India to be lodged in jails for months together without even being charged! What if Haneef was arrested in Bangalore on similar charges? Invariably, a few politicians would have exhibited foot-in-mouth disease immediately by announcing a 'catch'. Policemen would not hesitate to give interviews. Investigations be damned! "It's a diplomatic success..." says a senior govt. officer. Sir we don't know whether to laugh at your silly statement, or thank Aus. justice system for being at least fair, if not perfect.

Why is Sri Krishna Committee Report on Mumabi Riots not being pursued with zeal? Why is it that hardly anyone been punished for Gujarat Riots? Why is anti-sikh riots of 1984 regarded as a forgotten chapter with almost no convictions?

When justice is not meted out in the same manner to ALL citizens, or it is sought to be applied to select cases - we no longer have 'justice', we simply have 'laws', and a 'legal' system. And a lot of Hypocrisy.

There's competition for I&B Ministry...

I&B Ministry headed by Priyaranjan Das Munshi has competition.. yes this comes from Women and Child Welfare Minnistry headed by Renuka Chowdhry.

This is competition about: staying in the news, shouting out silly short-sighted policies with regular frequency, primarily aimed at getting attention! A trick learned from Shree Arjun Singh perhaps...

Ms Renuka Chowdhry first:

• All women will be required to register their pregnancies, ostensibly to help them with pre-and-post natat care, etc. (Has she visited a govt. hospital in recent times - to see the conditions there?. Force of any kind is likely to only strengthen the hands of quacks!)
• Introduction of Domestic Violence Act ostensibly to help women. She surely knows rampant misuse of dowry act notwithstanding, populism pays!

Mr Priya Ranjan Das Munshi:

• A perfectly legal contract between 'Neo' and BCCI is thrown out of the window, by arm-twisting and introducing new laws, so that Neo's cricket feed can be fed to the sick DD. So much so for upholding laws of the land. Did we hear someone say - Populism pays!
• Plans to introduce tax on TV's so that Doordarshan can be kept running profitably, ostensibly for the greater-good! It did not occur to the minister that, nobody watches or cares about DD primarily because of its third-grade programming and complete disregard for the intelligence of the viewer.

Lage Raho Minister Bhai...

Bhagalpur - 20 Years On...

Typical of the Indian Legal System, a local court has awarded prison-terms to 14 men convicted of horrendous crimes - comitted 20 Years Ago!

1989, Communal Riots at Bhagalpur were one of the worst since India's independence. Over a 1000 people were killed in the riots, and the above sentencing pertains to a single incident where 116 people were killed in a village. Given the amount of time elapsed, not surprisingly, 6 of the original 32 accused have died while case files were gathering dust.

Precisely, because the perpetrators of such crime were NOT swiftly rounded-up and Punished, mob-fury is fairly common-place in India. If you are a mob - you can shut-down a city, burn buses, kill-people, do-whatever - because the law does not apply to you, because you are anonymous. This is something not witnessed even in sub-saharan Africa.

And to think of it - the present sentencing - coming after glorious 20 years - is the first one - coming from a local court. There will be appeals, and the case we drag on for much longer time, as it moves up to higher courts in a torturously slow manner.

But where does the problem lie? It directly lies with the law-makers of the land. The folks who sleep in the Parliament, appoint Police Officers not based on merit but by caste-equations, and Legal Luminaries - who would rather keep their mouth shut than speak-up.

What kind of a society are we? All these gung-ho about great culture, Taj making it to 7-wonders, is a joke under such circumstances. What happened to our priorities?

Not-so-random-thought: Everytime we see a person proclaiming on tv, that he/she has full faith in judiciary - it makes us wonder - why repeat it on tv? We never see citizens in other countries make such pronouncements.