India Today’s yearly conclave opened up today with opening note of Editor Arun Puri . Ironically Dr Manmohan singh’s entry to the conclave podium occurred when arun puri was highlighting the second biggest challenge of economically growing India and that is corruption!!!!!!!!. Arun puri’s first point was growing divide between haves and have nots. Arun puri made some very strong , important statement . Calling corruption as economic cancer and Dr manmohan singh as economic doctor , he called upon dr manmohan singh to address the gathering. Arun puri’s word were straight that dr manmohan singh , in spite of being engulfed by latest scam remains person who is well respected and if he takes the call entire nation would support him.
The point which was confirmed when arun puri had to stop his note for few seconds since people applauded Dr singh’s entry to the podium. In spite of 2g , davos,adarsh,cash for votes,common wealth , cvc Dr singh still has more authenticity than sonia gandhi , l k advani , mayawati , mulayam singh yadav and others. The fact which gets confirmed by list of most trusted Indians.
Dr manmohan singh made many important points during his address. He talked about various schemes like mahatma Gandhi employment guarantee for rural, health policy which would be soon out , commitment for 50% women seats in panchayat and 33% seats in parliament .
More interesting was question answer session in which he agreed that scam did effect image of government. He denied to speak about how government wants to proceed for wiki leaks episode but did assert that he didn’t authorize anyone to buy votes for him. He addressed black money in real estate which he thinks can be dealt with by reducing stamp duties . He also talked about Administrative Reforms and committee which was set up 5 years ago and who recommendations would be implemented soon.
Now there are many tough questions which have come out of his address which are as following :
1) Since He didn’t authorize any one to purchase votes , who authorized it?. If CNN-IBN exposure and now wikileaks’s leak are true , why didn’t government follow it up and why did government continue instead of declaring election?.
2) Talking about administrative reform , why did committee take 5 years to come up with recommendations and even if they did take 5 years for that , how and by when does government plan to implement the reforms. Why the biggest stake holders (Indian citizens) have not be informed about the biggest step in governance?
3) Talking about black money in real estate , since prime minister admitted that black money is reality , how and by when he is thinking of curbing it ?. What is road map for it?
4) Dr manmohan singh also mentioned electoral reforms , there should be nation wide debate on this. The party fund should be made public in website and name of each and every donor must be mentioned in it. Yes it is tedious process but corruption starts with this and we should have transparent process to curb it.
5) Dr Singh talked about various schemes but what is government doing about proper implementation of those schemes considering the level of corruption in the country?
As Arun puri nicely put growth figures might be deceptive. Consistent growth is nice thing to have, it has seen India competing with the world , middle class rising , youth of India being confident but it is also factual reality that growth is not inclusive and larger part of India remains untouched with the growth. Government does come up with various schemes to give opportunities to those left out but who implements those schemes?. The departments and allegation of corruptions have time and again been made against various government agencies. When we see terrorism or naxalism or extremism we view it at isolated problem and call for acting with Iron hand but how many would like to destroy , kill or rob if he/she has hope of better life?. Corruption is not just economic cancer but cancer which can destroy GREAT INDIAN DREAM.
Now Dr Manmohan Singh’s biggest and toughest question is his will to take bulls by horns and go for cleaning drive to cure the cancer of corruption. Just by denying it , just by tolerating it wont solve it. But would he ask himself the tough question?. Only time would tell..
