EDITOR'S COLUMN

Friends

One more independence day has come and gone into the history. 15th Aug was a holiday, as usual, as the Sun set in the western horizon, it was yet another day like the remaining 364 days. Did the day make any difference to the 1200+million Indians? was a question stared at us. We, like our systemic confusion, were groping for answers. After 65 years, while as a nation, we have progressed, both socially and economically, to an extent, the unfinished agenda is nowhere near complete. We have had only political freedom on 15th Aug 1947, what about freedom from hunger, freedom from child labour, freedom from malnutrition, freedom from sickness, freedom from homelessness, freedom of sanitary privacy, freedom from half nakedness, freedom of equal opportunities, freedom from discrimination and persecution on ethnic, religious and linguistic differences? List of deprivation is long and majority of Indians, of all hues, are struggling to cope with vicissitudes, we call the life. Of course, there is a section who have enjoyed all freedom and continue to enjoy the freedom in all its pervasive forms. Tragedy is, this section does not recognise the shared value of freedom from want. Successive governments have failed to address the issue, while weeping for the poor but siding the rich. “Progress is more plausible judged by the reduction of deprivation than by the further enrichment of the opulent” wrote Amartya Sen, some years ago. Somehow we could never come to grips with the issues plaguing the nation for all these years. It was indeed a massive failure of Governance.

However, another reflection of an evolving India, La Annas, La Ramdevs and of course our literate voters who had always ignored to vote thus helping wrong candidates to win. In the Focus we have discussed whether it is the educated who truly let India down. Hope our readers shall find it interesting and revert with their feedback.

Yes, a very important and significant news is that this is our 150th edition, since we started some 12 years ago. Looking back, we have every right to feel happy and satisfied the way ISSUES & CONCERNS has evolved. While there have been flood of goodwill and congratulatory statements, the sad truth is our circulation has not kept pace the sentiments of our valued readers. Our Guru, Guide and mentor Dr MV Kamath, has been very kind and highly approbative of our attempts at keeping the periodical in good health both in appearance and contents. Good people always have good thing to say. So he has been very kind in legitimising our efforts. As a humble practitioner of print journalism, we humbly bow in reverence to his warm feelings. To you Sir, “Guruve Thasmai Namaha”. We at I & C promise to keep his trust and confidence intact in coming days