suicides and blasts

Reading Hindu after Times of India is like resuming a serious news channel after a commercial break. I have never seen such an irresponsible agenda driven so called national daily as TOI. Yesterday in Hindu I read a shocking piece of statistic: The number of deaths by suicides among farmers is mammoth 1,82,000 since ‘97… last four years Maharashtra, supposedly developed and progressive among the states, has been breaching 4000 figure in farmers deaths…. that is in spite the so called India shining and air of progress, recent influx of FDIs, creation of wealth and opportunity by IT and services sector. Deaths toll by Naxalites in the ‘interiors’ of tribal India in central regions is far more and especially more brutal and leading far more ‘loss of trust’ in government which virtually does not exist in those areas.

But what is taking center stage in media is killing done by mercenaries sent by our neighbor and that to me is as good as giving wrong signal to unhappy elements in India. It is like, you want your issue to be taken seriously, go and shake up urban India and hit where it hurts. Politicians in India have got habituated to delaying tactics knowing public memories are very short term and under the name of patience they can and have been avoiding definitive actions.

The whole episode makes me think common principles of prioritizing issues are being forgotten by so many those who are responsible for our society’s mental well being. And we don’t seem to be doing anything substantial on any front either. … let that be national security, intel, inclusion of marginal social sections, …looks like we are busy addressing the symptoms too much that we completely lack a long term solution to any of these problems. Watched “Charlie Wilson’s war”, Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in a very realistic political drama, around the tumultuous times before the US was coerced to intervene in Afghanistan invasion of USSR by a single person’s will and efforts then in 80s. 28 years later we are paying the price of trusting this most insecure neighbor and trying to keep peace process going in spite of repeated back stabbings. This movie is must watch as it shows how the wars are fought and how their financial backbones are spread thin across the globe. ...When we are in our retirements there will be movies made on How indian parliament attck was plotted or How bunch of brain washed mercenaries were sent on suicide mission to Mumbai..By then lets hope both countries mature enough and look back as mistakes of the past.