The Urban Civil War

We hear about recent trends in urbanisation.  The rate of growth of people in major Indian cities has been more than what the administration had predicted.  This brings huge challenges to the existing infrastructure & resources in these cities.  The pushes & pulls finally starts to show in different ways, most of them are not very pleasing.  Take the incidents in Mumbai - people turning against north Indians.  These and other 'sons of soil' policies in other cities are not very pleasant & has the potential to bring India to a near civil war kind of situation.  And by that the growth stories of one of the most promising Asian economy is going to come to a stand still.  There may be a few countries in our immediate neighborhood who would be happy to see such a turn of events.  However it will be a serious blow to us & for the world at large.  With the kind of politics & administration that we have in the country now, it will be next to impossible to recover in a generation or two from such a position.

Politicians & Conflict of Interest

The Sports Bill was put in front of the Indian cabinet to discuss.  No one had any doubt that it was not going to go down well with most ministers.  Read the news article here http://bit.ly/qkMqHo

The Sports Bill was going to be a game changer.  It was going to bring the all powerful BCCI under the RTI net and was also going to bring in lot of measures that seemed like common sense decisions.  However most of the sports authorities are run by ministers who are part of the cabinet.  And the bill was going to cut their wings or reduce their monopoly on the sports bodies.  Now how are they going to allow that.

When a bill or legislation is being discussed and drafted shouldn't the ministers and people whom it impacts to be kept away from it.  Here there is a serious conflict of interest.  Even though it is the cabinet ministers, if the law being discussed impacts them, they should be able to put forth their opinion but they should not have any say on passing the bill.

It should happen for other legislation as well.  The ministers keep raising their salary and benefits on a regular basis.  And at times many times over the current amounts.  Should they be allowed to determine what the benefits they should receive?