॥ स्वक्ष ॥

Is India, increasingly portrayed as the fastest growing economy in Asia, the best place to do business with ??! What is the ground reality for a business (it could be a startup in the manufacturing industry) when a CEO is murdered in broad daylight, abetted by an inactive police. Instead of booking the murdering criminals the labour minister warns the industry ...for what ... conducting business and generating employment?? Maybe the negative impact on foreign investment will pass the message across in future. Sadly, this too will be forgotten after a few days when the media finds another juicer piece of news.

If the ministers reaction is intended to provide more spark by indirectly telling people to take law into their own hands, it works very well. What would they have done if an Indian newspaper had advertised Mandela, DalaiLama and Gandhi (will someone tell Jyllandsposten its not spelt as Ghandi) like the Nordic Jyllandsposten did??  Salil Tripathi opines that these Jyllands-Posten " life is easier, if you don’t speak up" ads are intended to send a message across to Muslims across the world that if Indians, Tibetians and South Africans around the world are not offended by the posters then they should not take law into their own hands.

My guess is that there will be Indian people who will find offence with those posters because its so easy to overlook the philosophy like satyagraha, truth, no corruption or ahimsa, which Gandhi (recycled from the older B.Gita and Upanishads) propagated than deal with mundane issues like poverty and terrorism. Today, dont be too surprised to see Gandhi benignly smiling at you from the portrait on the wall he is hung on, in a government office, whilst the employee sitting under the duly garlanded photograph asks you for bakshish/chai pani (== bribe).... Welcome to modern India!!

The movie, Gandhi - My Father explores Gandhi’s role within his family and Akshay Khanna (would love to see AK pair up with Aamir Khan in the play Mee Nathuram Godse boltoy which is N.Godse's perspective on why he did what he did) brought to life what we had never learnt in school or wrote in examination answer sheets but always knew, the humane side of Gandhi -- the spectacular failure he was as a father whilst being hailed as India's Father (Bapu). How ironical and yet he has morals and a strong character and many qualities worth emulating, which are (sadly) completely absent in modern politicians.