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Beyond "NOTA" Can Delhi Dream ?

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WE don't know how big the filth and garbage in our city will get with every growing day.  We don't know when and how soon will we get respite from the frequent outbreaks of Dengue and Chikungunya. We don't know when the threat of open drainage will end.  However we do know that this Sunday we will once again go and cast our vote and  elect  candidates  for our respective wards Yes the election to the three  Municipality Committees of Delhi will be held on this 23rd.  Do you  know that out of the two thousand and plus candidates contesting for 272  seats, there are around 180 candidates who have criminal cases registered against them and another 120 candidates who have serious cases of murder, kidnapping and crime against women pending in various courts. Incidentally BJP has highest number of such candidates when compared to Congress and AAM ADMI  parties. Our  discomfort against the political parties is always there, yet we religiously elect them back and they i

Yeh.".....". Dilli Maange NoMore....

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This Sunday 1.32 crore  voters will go to the polling booths, press their choice of button just once and 'only once' to decide the fate of 272 candidates in the eight districts governed by MCD. which incidentally covers  96 % of Delhi's geographical area. Delhi is spread over 1485 sq Km and has five Municipal corporations namely New Delhi Municipality  Committee(NDMC), Delhi Cantonment Board North Delhi Municipality(NDM), South Delhi Municipality(SDM) and East Delhi Municipality(EDM). The first two Municipality comes under Central govt and hence not a part of this Sunday election. The number of  wards under NDM and SDM are 104 each  while the number of ward under EDM is 64 .  Thus put together there are 272 wards.  The  total number of candidates on the fray for this 272 wards are 2315, out of which 637 candidates are crorepatis  and 163 candidates have criminal cases against them. There are 18 political parties on the field  the prominent among them being   BJP,  

The Rise Of India's Crony Spiritualism

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In our country God men are as old as the concept of God and Religion. The gullible common man ever remains  fooled by these God men so much so that they have become a power unto themselves Over a time all such organized faith, cult and  religious movements have effectively become the smartest and most flourishing start up ideas that has over a time become a superlative profiting business ventures. The Guru-Baba duo of Ravishankar and Ramdev are currently  the emerging nexus of Modiism  Ramdev Baba's nine year old Patanjali Ayurved reports Rs 5000 crore annual revenue from virtually nothing when it started in year 2007 and now  is all set to double that figure in the current  financial year .Ramdev is  going after big established multinationals like Nestle, Colgate Palmolive and Unilever and he insists they will be left clueless. That  speaks the kind of political clout that he garners. Seeing Patanjali's success, Ravi Shankar's Sri Sri Ayurveda is also on the way to

The Poster Boy of Bad Loans

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The  king of good times who fled to UK  after his Kingfisher Airlines fiasco has been finally arrested by the UK police Though the reason for arrest is not very clear, it could be for all you know  a beginning  of  the extradition process for deporting  Vijay Mallya Vijay Mallya who fled to London around last year in search of  Achhe-Din may finally be back. Since the time he  defaulted on  bank loans amounting to over 9000 crores and fled to UK the battle between this flamboyant businessman and the PSU banks  has become a classic example of idiom: Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Reviewing the huge quantum of Indian Banks Non Performing Assets (NPA) the Ex Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan had suggested during his tenure that the Govt should  go after corrupt Bank management as well as corrupt Promoters. However his suggestion was never put on fast track instead he lost his second term for RBI governorship. SBI  started cleaning up their balance she

M C D Election..2017

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It was Deepak Chopra who said 'when you make a choice you change the future' but I am not very sure if that proves true in the coming Delhi civic poll. This time when you press a particular labelled button on the "Electronic Voting Machine" , it will be more to keep alive Democracy than making a choice between "good,bad and ugly". Civic bodies are good notion nothing more.  MCD is a politically accepted  den for corruption and the fact that  BJP  is ruling it for a decade does not make it any better. Since Anna Hazare started his war against corruption , all the political parties have become self acclaimed Anti-corruption institutions . However it is a living fact that CORRUPTION  today has become the very DNA of politics in the country . The quantum of corruption that can be attributed to a particular political party will always remain in direct proportion to the  power and influence  that it can garner,nationally,regionally or locally. So politic

Will 'Yogi' be the MONK who......well well.?

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Since independence our political parties have been using secularism to appease the minorities yet on the ground no tangible upliftment of minorities has been attained.This in itself speaks of how our politicians remain engrossed in politically exploiting the minority card to garner votes. Uttar Pradesh one of the most populous state in India and a home for almost 17 % of  our population is also one of the largest state in the Republic of India. All political parties here remain arrogantly thriving and prospering at he cost of  State's bleeding economy and a besieged fate of its  minorities.  Be it 'Mulla' Mulyam Singh and his SP or be it 'Behenji' Mayawati and her BSP , each of them have taken turns in criminalization of politics as well exploiting the plight of people in poverty to retain their political supremacy in the state. It was in such a political scenario that BJP has emerged victories without playing the Muslim  appeasement politics. This histori

"MyTimesTales"..A reflection !

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My mother would read out the bed time stories for me from Rudyard Kipling's"  Jungle Book"  I grew up re-reading Jungle Book till the time I got addicted to the those daily comic strips in TOI which introduced me toTarazen and Phantom. So goes My Tale of My times "Jab Mein Chota Bacha Tha." Very recently I was privileged to get a complimentary copy of Short Stories"MY TIMES MY TALES" (Published by:Peoples Syndicate Pvt Ltd) This  is a collection of 27 short stories .All the 27 are captivating and are first person narratives. Each of them revolve round those 'here and there' incidents that we stumble upon in our everyday life  The way these random thoughts and incidents are brought out as a story does keep the reader both engaged and engrossed.  The author Dinesh N Verma  is a retired civil servant. This book of short stories is his first venture into the domain of storytellers. Like me I am sure every reader of this book will find h