EDITOR'S COLUMN

Friends,

We are well and truly into the monsoon season. It’s wet all over. It just didn’t rain, it poured in many places. Whole of Maharashtra including Mumbai was inundated with some making a fun on the submerged Suburban railway tracks as “India is the only country in the world to have trains running on water.” Arunachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh Deccan Plateau including parched land of Latur had more and plenty. But it’s been erratic. Hopefully farmers should have no complaint of water shortage. The Met men’s prediction of more than normal rain may after all come true. According to them some 90% of the country has received normal and excess rainfall, 26% being excess and 63% area of the country having received normal rainfall, rest of 11% being deficit.

We are in August. If nothing else, at least the 15th Aug is the reminder of the event that happened 69 years ago. As a politically free country we are 69 years old. Looking back, how has been the journey of our Meraa Bhaarath Mahaan? There used to be a cynical observation “Sau mein ninyanave be-imaan, phir bhi Meraa Bhaarath Mahaan”, that is ‘out of 100, there are 99 dishonest, still my Bhaarath is the greatest’. Somehow the last two years of NDA under Prime Minister Modi, has been somewhat better with the corruption quotient. There has been no known cases of big time corruption and a published corrupt senior politician and a senior and powerful minister in Maharashtra was given a marching order for big time financial irregularities. This is a good sign. If India has been cheated of more development, corruption in high places has been the single most important reason. However, same cannot be said about appointment to senior positions, like CMD of Banks, directors to NITs etc. where influence peddling and questionable characters being appointed over more transparent and competent persons have been given a go by. Hope the incumbent NDA at the centre can turn the corner in the development paradigm of the country. And Prime Minister Modi must be more than keen to present his report card on the ramparts of Red Fort on 15th Aug. 

Month-in-Perspective has been as usual with our take on multiple happenings in the country. We have covered as much as we could, within the pages available for the M-i-P.

July 11, was the World Population Day. It is one of the most crucially important day, the United Nations Organizations, had decided early on, to be observed the world over. The idea was to make all policy makers and nation’s stake holders to understand the gravity of ever increasing population. While Europe and Japan has been able to stabilize and even reverse the increasing trend, good part of Asia, Africa & Middle East and Latin America has witnessed rise in its population to uncomfortable levels. We have tried to write about India’s rising numbers, which is increasingly suggesting that it is likely to beat China, as the country with largest population, sooner than expected. This is a distinction, we should try, not to live with. In Focus we have tried to talk about the absence of a coherent national population policy. Hope readers will find it interesting. Do revert with your inputs.