Stagnant rain waters swamp Bombay and bring the city to a virtual standstill; the wife of the late Parvinder Singh of Ranbaxy lodges a criminal case against her youngest brother-in-law as she and her family contest the written will of her father-in-law; Ratan Tata begins to run scared of Laxmi Mittal as competition and free enterprise force new positions and realities; the health minister sacks the head of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences as the prime minister and government look on silently, and become victim, once again, to the ?blackmail? of coalition partners in an attempt to hang on to power; and the visuals of educated young doctors being beaten on the streets of the capital by cops continue to haunt the mind, juxtaposed with images of men with criminal records, now in legitimate power, being supported by the same ruling alliance that claims it wants to ?clean? up the system. This is India circa 2006.
When environmentalists screamed blue murder about the rampant, illegal degradation of the environment, of our cities, our rivers, our forests, the governments, the present one included, along with their left partners, did what they had set out to ? structure policy for electoral votes and not the future security of this nation.
Bombay will sink because over the years the land mafia?s pressure on governments, their ability to buy their demands and manipulate policy, have destroyed the natural environment. Along with corrupt municipalities these rapacious opportunists, unthinking, greedy-for-quick-gain operators have destroyed all with political and bureaucratic protection. The same breed has now dug its nails into Delhi and its only surviving lung that allows it to breathe ? the Ridge.
Dirty linen
When Parvinder Singh broke away from his father, who had started the family business, he did so consciously because he wanted to break loose and make Ranbaxy a professional, competitive international business. He had nothing to do with his father once the split happened. It now seems quite undignified to see his family wanting to grab Bhai Mohan Singh?s property, defying his will and contesting it in court. The family?s unwashed linen, being waved about in the public domain, is crass. As supposedly mature businessmen, Malvinder and Shivinder should have restrained their mother from going to the police station for the second time ? the first time to lodge a similar complaint against her own husband. This hysterical behaviour will damage the reputation of the company and that of its heirs.
Will Ratan Tata get Kamal Nath to make a statement in his ?favour?, as the minister has done for Laxmi Mittal? Yes, it is all rather juvenile. It is as though Indian corporate organizations have not quite gotten used to free market, competition and the survival of the best!
A. Ramadoss seems to have loads of time on his hands as the public health services across rural and urban India wallow in ineptitude and inadequacy. Instead of setting the foundations to combat AIDS, to kill the recurrence of malaria, to restore the government health centres, to eliminate the deathly horror of spurious drugs, he is busy interfering where he should not. In this day and age to have cabinet ministers behave in this arbitrary and uncouth manner makes a mockery of modern India. And a speechless prime minister makes the wicked charade even more worrying. How can Dr Manmohan Singh in particular permit this kind of uncivilized stance and behaviour? How can he, of all people, not come out strongly in defence of basic propriety? His silence, his inability to change the portfolio of this rampaging colleague, his ?no comment?, send out the signal of his not being in command of his government, policy or cabinet. It makes India feel insecure.
