Vote secular for a return to Gandhian values

By now you must have heard that Tamil Nadu is Florida (minus Jeb Bush) while Gujarat is an extremely poor state. Also, not everyone in Gujarat has a 64" Plasma Television (a problem Congress plans to mitigate partially).There have been at a minimum half a dozen special reports on a "Vibrant Gujarat". When the host starts with - is Gujarat really a vibrant state? you have pretty much figured out what's coming.

Gujarat is apparently not shining as brightly as Maharashtra or Andhra Pradesh. Yes! There are farmer suicides too! Now, don't go around asking for detailed stat. Please. It doesn't work that way.

In any case, just a few interesting reports:

In debt ridden Vidharbha, a 30-year-old woman, forced by her husband's suicide and extreme poverty, has replaced her bullock for ploughing her fields herself. It's a moving resemblance to the Hindi film Mother India, now played by Leelabai Devkar. Her 11-year-old daughter, ironically named Lakshmi, is sharing the burden. Leelabai's ageing father-in-law is guiding the plough behind them. [link]

Shankar Dabe Rao, a cotton farmer in Maharshtra's Buldhana District has been forced to fill in for one of his bullocks, which was washed away in the recent floods. The water took with it not just the bull, which was bought with borrowed money, but also Shankar's crops, his only source of income to re-pay the loan. And to break this cycle of ever increasing debt, Shankar says, he had no choice but to take the place of his bull and ask his 72-year-old father to help him plough the field. [link]

This is the hard reality of rural India, 10-year-olds replacing oxen to plough fields. The situation is so desperate that there is no dearth of human ploughs. In Sahpur village of Vaishali district, Bihar, small children are ploughing croplands belonging to Union Rural Development Minister, Raghubansh Prasad Singh. The man who supervises their job is the minister's younger brother, Raghuraj Prasad Singh. "If they fall ill, we will get them treated, but the work in these fields will be done by children only. If not these, then there will be others to take their place. But what is the solution to all this?" says Raghuraj. [link]

So, the Union Rural Development Minister's bro is asking for a solution to using 10-year olds as cattle. Think Mr. Modi may have an answer to that?

Sorry if we have annoyed you with boring details. We have more interesting stuff, so hang in there!

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra state administration is gearing up to develop the infrastructural facilities in Amravati, the hometown of President Pratibha Patil's husband.

"We expect that she may visit Amravati around five times a year and we are looking at strengthening the existing infrastructure, including airport and rail network, to facilitate her arrival and stay," Minister of State for Finance Sunil Deshmukh said. The existing airstrip at Amravati is 2,200 m whereas the length of the runway for her plane to land will be around 3,200 m," Deshmukh said.

Amravati in Vidarbha region is hometown of Patil's husband and former Mayor of the city, Devisingh Ransingh Shekhawat. [link]

Of course, we can't simply let our first Citizen to not have world class facilities when she visits her Sasural, can we? Sure, there will be detractors.

"Vidarbha and Amravati has lakhs of families in deep distress. Over 3,000 families have been affected by farmer suicides. But the state government is not spending Rs 50 crore for food security but is ready to spend Rs 400 crore for a new airport. This is very unfortunate. We will talk to Pratibha tai and then take to the roads," Tiwari said.

Curiously though, from all accounts Amravati seems like a podunk with about 5 Lakh people. It is not like investors are scrambling to be there or anything like that. The place does not even have drainage facilities (Madam's husband was mayor), according to some folks. As a matter of fact, the place does seem to have an airport. Amravati is in fact only 3 hours away from the Nagpur airport.

As far as development goes, Solapur is a better candidate for infrastructure upgrade. More industrialized, higher population (8 Lakhs) and closer to Bombay. Also, you got to read this report about the Solapur airport to believe it!

We were somewhat astonished at this develoment. While we do agree that our Prez needs an exclusive personal airport, the whole plan of Rs. 400 crores seemed like an overkill. A careful recap of the presidential election and a light bulb went on. The thing is, there are still some skeletons in our Madam President's family closet that can stumble out during these election times and cause unnecessary hassles and indigination. Rs. 400 crore worth of work can do wonders to the motivation of supporters. Heck, forget motivation, for that kinda money, half of Amravati will swear in front of the supreme court that all those things were vicious Hindutva lies.

We just hope someone takes an inventory of the Rashtrapati Bhavan silverware before it's too late.