Certainly, the system should be sound which delivers quick results! But, that doesn't prevent having a good leadership. A good leadership is a catalyst to promote and refine system further! They, in fact, together, compliment each other as mutual support to accelerate march ahead to achieve wonderful results! That is need of the hour to lift sinking India with the help of healthy system and devoted sincere leadership! Present system is full of faulty economics that deliberately projects India in a comfortable position, when its large majority of population is below poverty line and several of them die of poverty and starvation! Disparity line between rich and poor widens every day! What is that growth which doesnt project real standards of life of millions of people in miseries in the country? How can it be called a growth at all? Present G.D.P. growth formula is like misguiding a pilot of a plane taking off, carried away by faulty readings of navigating altimeters that show the plane ascending while actually it dives down to crash deep into Arabian sea which happened in reality on new years day, years ago of an Air India Boeing flight to Dubai from Mumbai , killing all passengers of about 300 or so including the crew! We, perhaps, presently lead to similar dangerous status when GDP growth places us comfortably on one side and a large majority of population toils and moils without basic needs to die on the other! Perhaps, a new formula incorporating conditions of common man in the G.D.P .growth, that will project the reality, is immediately necessary!
I fully agree with the Ethiraj, not only because I suffered from the deluge myself and experienced things first hand but also hearing and seeing the situations to all those who suffered even worse than me.
If wishes were horses, then
1) The dug up roads were complete before monsoons 2) All manholes, buffalo holes, or even bigger would have been shut and sealed 3) All Drainage canals were clean so that they did not choke 4) Information was delivered across various media/police/posts 5) Rescue services deployed on full scale across the state 6) People who run the state/ city .. carry a bigger vision for the future and implement those visions in record time 7) All agencies work in co-ordinated fashion
A System in place can put a lot of things in the right perspective.
Didnt our people laugh when:
Japanese Ran out of offices/ schools for earthquake drills The Westerners for Fire drills And the only drill we see here.. are the ANTI HIJACKING DRILLS Come on,we are the citizens of this country, give some value to our lives, to our standard of living, make travelling easier. Kill Corruption thats the root cause to the poor plight of this country and this CITY.
I am grateful to Rediff and Mr. Ethiraj for this article. it is a very important piece of writing.
However, I am afraid that even this may not be enough to rouse the people of Mumbai enough. Even this may lead to sustained pressure from citizens to government.
The reason is that we dont have a mechanism to exert pressure on each officer and department of government.
Mr. Ethiraj I invite you. Let us get together to think concrete, efficient and cost effective ways to solve this kind of problem. And if we can help solve one problem we can replicate the success. Pl mail me at letusallimprove@rediffmail.com (yes we are a small group and recently started taking small baby steps toward improving situation in our country).
Great article. But I fear it will remain in words only or be taken seriously by all concerned including we the people.
This explains that how a will to do something can be done without much fuss, expense etc. Just a clear direction (like yours) and understanding the importance of teaming up, can save a lot of human lifes, properties, disasters.
We don't ask for any extra ordinary efforts, just simple timely correct information. I would even question why only limit to Mumabai ? Does such catastrohpes occur in Mumbai only ? Such pro active systems could be helpful at the time of parliament attacks (delhi), Akshardham attacks (Gandhinagar), Earthquake (Gujarat), Tsumani (Tamil Nadu) and many such instances.
One example related to rumors is when earthquake happened in Gujarat. In the days to follow, somewhere I read that the total casualty would be as high as 1 lakh. This was said by none other than George Fernandes. Do we know the actual figures ? All taken into account it was somewhere around 20,000 or so ? How did it became 1 lakh - ONLY GEORGE FERNANDES CAN SAY ? Ah ! I relied on my secretaries assumption.
Anyway, very good article. May all understand this
What has happened in Mumbai is a catastope.This is due to the failur of the human being 2 understand the mother Nature properly. Wat ever b the reson for it, v have not taken care of the nature at it face value and taken it granted, wat ever v do it can sustain. every thing has got the limit, atleast now v have to consider the limitation in right prespective. Just the develpoment of the Humanbeing is not the only the consideration, v have 2 account for the holostic develpoment of the Nature; not just the well being of the Humankind. These r the regular allarms v r getting and the time is high to act just not at the scientfic inventions whcih r not in line with the Nature.
What a coincidence.Just the other day Scotland Yard was contemplating use of CellPhone companies to disseminate information. We not only do not have leaders with a vision we donot have systems as well which can take care of itself.Actually it is both cause and effect. To top it all have we have general public which is not exposed to the modern technology that much and those who are exposed care less if that is implemented or not.
How did some one who cares less as your report says become the chief minister? If the chief minister shows this much concern for the affected people of Mumbai, then what can you expect from the other ministers and the government machinery under them-nothing. The chief minister is not a leader in a situation he has proved to be a party leader and not a leader by the sence of the word.He is not fit to take care of the problems the people are facing. vaz
