Politics with Corruption recipe - A Zillion Dollar Frittata made of rotten eggs?

Corruption has never been a stranger when it comes to Politics. But the recent fallout cases of CWG 2010, Army Land scams, the 2G scam; all which come under central government fence has nothing but revealed the depth of corruption spread. There is a huge debate going on in media these days on whether the term ‘Lobbyist’ should be legalized and more transparent which I had also talked in my previous blog, but that’s a different point altogether. But when a Lobbyist have the influential capacity to appoint ministers in the government to compromise democracy, then I think there’s more serious thought that needs to be looked into.

I remember during Obama’s recent visit to India where he said that India is not emerging but has emerged, the statement couldn't have sounded more comical and embarrassing after the recent scams. It is absolutely clear that corruption in the recent cases are because of Political Leadership and Government and the entire system is to blame for.

With such huge scams revelations coming every few days, the talks of India’s economic growth of 8.5% to 9% sometimes just worries me a lot of the nature of this growth and the consequences to follow. Government is increasing its spending on real estate, mining and infrastructure & construction projects and corruption is playing a big part in the growth numbers as well. I am not an expert with the numbers, but if I recollect correctly, Govt. budget was Rs. 10 lakh crores for this year. Out of every Rupee, only 15 paise actually reaches people (this is Late Rajiv Gandhi’s analysis by the way!) and if is this is the case then the money loss or leakage would be around Rs. 850,00,000 crores; of which, Rs. 1.76 lakh crores goes just to Raja! Hmmm... the term 'leakage' for 850,00,000 crores sound so generous isn't it!

A former economist (IMF) and currently an Advisor to our hon. PM Dr. Manmohan Singh has pointed, and rightly so; a very real issue that most of the billionaires in India do create their money due to their closeness with the politicians and the politics as a whole. I have observed a very significant thing that when it comes to billionaires of India, most of them have come from the real estate, mining and infrastructure sectors; much to the coincidence, heavily influenced by Government. A real-case example of this is India’s Satyam Raju who is just moving from hotels and hospitals to bails unlike Bernard Madnoff of US, who was charged of financial fraud and is currently serving jail sentence of 150 years.  What an irony and tragedy in India! (Both of these were arrested during similar period)

Apart from the embarrassment and the shameful scenes going in our political system, I know a lot of us do feel angry about it and for those who don’t, it’s better they start getting angry about it. I just hope the govt. doesn’t get distracted and takes steps in forward direction till the changes happen which we need them to…