India Political Blog

The RTI Act has typically been used to bring about information mainly about the status of one’s own files that are being processed slowly by the bureaucracy, or to root out some matters of public interest, typically in cases where some sort of corruption is involved. But as more and more cases come about, it is clear that RTI can make information freely available to people, and information is power. In this particular case, it has allowed a non-Government official to ask details about the record of a official who was promoted, once revealed, the information was such that the promotion was withdrawn.

Ashwin Patel, who is a drug manufacturer himself, had asked whether the promotion of assistant depot manager of the Central Medical Stores Organisation (CMSO) RS Shah can be considered legal or not. Shah was chargesheeted by his own department and a vigilance inquiry too was pending against him. At the end of the exercise, Shah’s promotion was withdrawn on Friday.
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There is an old saying, ‘Save the rod, and spoil the child‘. It has a simple premise, that unless you teach a child the right and wrong and what to do / not to do, and actually implement these instructions with some punishment from time to time such that the lesson is imprinted. You would also have heard of teachings in Catholic schools where the nuns would imprint morals into a person, and make sure that these are properly learnt through the use of corporal punishment. What actually is corporal punishment? It is the using of some form of physical punishment in an educational facility as an aid to learning. Sounds simple, does it not; it worked in the past, did it not.
Well, guess what, in the past, society had no problems with the usage of such punishment as drawing and quartering, cutting of the head, and other barbaric forms of killing as a death sentence. As society evolves, it moves away from barbarism, and learns better ways of doing things. As a part of this, there is a realization that letting teachers use canes / rods / slaps as a means of punishing a student is no longer acceptable; in fact, for every 2 students who improve from this experience, there will be many others who get scarred with this experience, especially if it happens on a regular basis. There are other ways of making sure that students learn, and usage of such punishment is unwarranted, and in fact, is illegal in schools.
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The slum land allotment case in India suddenly blew up. From initial results, some things seem clear. The man who made so much money through this morass of corruption and theft, Ashok Malhotra, made a lot of money through the active help of corrupt MCD and DDA employees, including senior people. But you know the Government and the legal system, it depends on proof. And since there has not been a good track record in terms of arresting and prosecuting Government employees for their various nefarious activities, it is assumed that such a situation will continue. Or at least that’s what the employees in the MCD office think. Get rid of the documentation, and voila, there’s no proof. And the sad thing is, it might work:
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