Chidambaram's Letter

Home minister P.Chidambaram’s letter that’s yet to reach Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee is no shot in the arm of Trinomool as construed upon in some political circles. Some, however, challenge the veracity of the letter as it’s not reached CM even after three days and the language used in the letter particularly ‘Harmads’ does not fit in with Chidambaram’s perfectly gentlemanly style of writing. However, even if the letter is written by Chidambaram, it’s the political compulsion that prompted him to write it. The threat of Mamata Banerjee to quit UPA in the event Central govt continues to ignore their complaints repeatedly made against state govt regarding law and order problem and misuse of joint forces at Jungalmahal has worried Chidambaram a lot particularly when Center is not very comfortable in the face abnormal price hike through out the country and one mind-boggling scam after another unfolding itself almost each day. To pacify TMC supremo who has constituted the second largest ally of UPA govt Chidambaram has perhaps written such a letter to CM.But whatever be the content and tone of the letter home minister is unlikely to take any action against the state govt as it’s neither politically prudent nor constitutionally viable for Center to embark upon any such step particularly when the assembly elections are near at hand.

Shrugging off stigma!

Homeopathy: Staunch critics of Homeopathy often say ‘Who has nowhere to go, goes to an homeopath’. They mean when a man can’t afford any other treatment, try their luck with an homeopath. Perhaps homeopathy has to suffer such humiliation or adverse criticism because modern sciences can’t explain how it works. But in practice it’s found to cure many diseases that can’t be even cured by other conventional therapies. Many times it works wonder. Still critics don’t relent. Some even call it faith healing. In many developed countries practice of homeopathy has been banned. But is it the fault of the this therapy that tenets of modern sciences can’t explain how it works? Or isn’t it the other way round? It’s the limitations of modern sciences that it can’t explain the working principle of homeopathy?

One argument is often put forward against homeopathy is that here medicines are potentised by dilution and in an extremely dilute solution starting material is expected to remain virtually absent. So then how can the medicine work? But recently Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay has established homeopathy medicines work on the basis of nanotechnology. Here researchers have shown even extremely diluted solution of homeopathic remedies contains measurable amounts of starting material. So now homeopathy can shrug off its stigma that its working principle can’t be interpreted by modern sciences.

La Miserable!

The whole episode seems unbelievable.Can a teacher ask for a laptop from his pupil to promote him to higher class? Yes it did happen in no less an elite school than La Martiniere for boys at Kolkata.Sanjay Smart, class teacher of 11-yr old Srijan Banerjee allegedly asked his father for a laptop to promote him to class V. Sujan’s father did not oblige Smart and as a result the boy was expelled from school.Sujan’s father is not a man to surrender to such black mail. He dragged the matter to court and high court gave verdict in favour of Sujan. It asked La Mart to take back Sujan to school and promote him to class V.Unfazed school authority contested the HC order at Supreme court. The apex court upheld the HC’s verdict and asked La Mart to lift expulsion order and promote Sujan to higher class. School did implement SC’s order.

The above episode might raise many unsavoury questions in people’s mind. Is it a common practice in many elite schools to bribe teachers for promotion of their wards? If not, why did school authority punish Sujan in stead of the teacher who allegedly asked for bribe from the boy’s father. School authority could have at least initiated an enquiry into this matter. On the other hand authority went to the extent of going to the apex court to defend the errant teacher. Such an instance is bound to send shock wave to the teaching and students’ community as well.

A Withering State

Perhaps now West Bengal stands out as the most unfortunate state in our country. Despite resources and opportunities Bengal is gradually lagging behind . This setback can be attributed to unique political scenario prevailing here. To start with the ruling party made serious efforts to advance the state through industrialization which is in fact the need of the hour for employment generation. There was nothing wrong in it. But what stood in the way was the govt’s unnecessary hurriedness to bring about the change and not to take the opposition in to confidence in this regard. It did it as it enjoyed the brute majority reducing the opposition to microscopic minority. It tried to go alone as if opposition was a non-entity.

After land reform in Bengal small land owners who once tilled in other’s lands developed emotional attachment to land. This attachment was much intense with those who’ve multicrop land in particular. For them to lose land is as good as losing near and dear ones.Incidentally, in Bengal most of the land is cultivable. Govt failed to understand procurement of land was a very sensitive issue. It requires time and patience to convince the farmers that they’d be ultimately benefited if they part with their land.Govt, however, could not afford to spend that amount of time lest the delay could help the other states to attract the entrepreneurs. So in many cases land was forcefully procured against the will of the farmers. Land thus procured included multi crop land also. The opposition, particularly Trinomool Congress made this acquisition of land against the farmers’ will a big issue and started anti-land acquisition movement in a big way. The land movement awarded TMC unexpected popular support. They got back sufficiently firm land under their feet to stand on and threw challenge to the govt against land acquisition. Enthused by their unbelievable success TMC devoted whole heartedly to organize farmers against acquisition of land, whatever be the purpose of acquisition . So all developmental activities that needed land did grind to a halt. What’s most unfortunate Tatas shifted its automobile factory from Singur to Gujarat in the face of political turmoil even after near completion of the project. What’s worse TMC embarked upon policy of non-cooperation with the govt and they were not on speaking terms with any member of the ruling party. Perhaps such a situation has never cropped up in any state of our country.

Now opposition has directed its attention to Rajarhat Newtown, recently named Jyoti Basu Nagar.TMC’s started movement in the same fashion as in Singur and Nandigram.Their bone of contention is that land has been forcefully grabbed from poor people at Rajarhat at unjustified price to make the township. Now at Rajarhat IT hub Wipro is going to establish its second unit after one at Salt Lake City and Infosysis has been allotted land to open their unit. These new establishments would generate a large number of employments. One might fear such political agitations would stand in the IT giants’ way of establishing their units as it happened with Tatas at Singur.What’s unfortunate the opposition could have sorted out their grievances simply by negotiation with the govt in stead of launching agitation. This land acquisition issue has in fact stalled all developmental work in the state. It’s not spared the TMC supremo too. At Sankrail, Howrah construction of a railway factory has halted in the face of anti land procurement movement by her own party. In the event TMC comes to power and the Left parties resist procurement of land at each and every step, where would this poor state go? It’s high time all parties could pause and ponder over this issue and behave sensibly at least in the interest of the state.

Corruption begins at home!

To indulge in corrupt practices has been the way of our life. Perhaps no body brothers about it now a days. For people at all places corruption is their prerogative. Majority of our MPs are corepaties and their declared assets enhance many fold in each election compared to earlier one. No body questions how their wealth burgeons in such unusual way. Nor they care to hide their wealth. On the contrary they vie with others in flaunting wealth. Recently an MP hired an entire train for carrying invitees to the marriage party of his son. Administration won’t bother to enquire how the MP concerned has amassed so much of money. In majority of cases people in power have wealth which is glaringly disproportionate with their income. A minor scrutiny might unearth their dubious source of income. But who’ll do this precious job? There prevails an unholy nexus among the custodians of law and justice and perpetrators of malpractices. So corruption has pervaded all strata of our society. Imagine a professor of IIT Kharagpur who happens to be the chief of the vigilance committee too was running a parallel institute for years at the campus illegally and was fleecing unsuspecting students hefty fees. It’s been also revealed other reputed teachers of the institute also joined the fray. The main accused is now suspended and an enquiry is going on. Recently a renowned doctor heading the inspection team awarded affiliation to a substandard medical college at the cost of 2 crores of rupees. The doctor is also suspended and enquiry has been initiated. These are only a handful of cases where probe is being made and in other cases wrong doers generally get scot free. Big scam involving mind boggling amount of money is unfolded almost every day. Scam in miniature form starts at grass root levels and at later stage it ramifies and take dreadful proportion. So miniscams at lower levels must not be ignored to ensure minimizing corruptions at higher levels. Now corruptions have been so very rampant, who will stem the rot?