This is like a 360 degree view of India in less than a week. On one side; Lakshmi Pratury co-hosted the 1st ever TED in India; on the other I was watching the dirty politics of India. Whereas one Chief Minister had amassed Rs. 2000+ crore (around $500m) the other put 1 million homeless at stake after the worst ever flood in the state of Karnataka. The former state is the one of the poorest albeit richest in minerals whereas the other had people thronging to attend the glitz, ideas and dazzling display of innovation at the Infosys campus Mysore.
Amongst this I attended the annual National Educators Day — to which I fondly christened it as NED to make it more marketable. While NED had 2000 educators and students putting their best brains to solve some interesting issues like Robotics for masses, triple-powered Reva, a Traffic violation system, etc etc. On the other hand the best brains were showcasing personal power plants, raising the livelihood of rickshaw pullers to advancement in neuroscience to raising the bar of education in disconnected villages of India at the TED event.
Bewildered by the fact that on one side educators, innovators & think-tanks are pushing the envelope to take the country forward, while on the other the likes of Reddys, Yeddys, Kodas are taking the country backwards.
Do we think that the advancement in technology, media, innovation are automatically going to fix the larger issues of corruption which touch our daily lives in an infamous way? Or we simply ignore this like we ignore the garbage outside our own homes?
The corruption is especially high in the states as multiple regional parties clamor for power and the national parties “support” them to get the favor back for the national parliament. It flows all the way up from the policemen at the local region to the capital.
The big question is how do we cleanse the system — or does it flush out like a bad meal automatically? Boils my blood seeing all this but I have the same genetic defect like rest of the Indians — a nonchalant attitude until my pants are on fire.
PS. Huh, it does not even hurt anymore; Madhu Koda has already dropped to page 5 in the majority of national media papers.