An Evolutionary Revolution

What Made IAC The Largest Social Revolution Of India? 

THE SOCIAL CARRIER

19^th August, 2011 the date that could change the future of the world’s largest democracy, India, forever. The date was when the India’s modern day Gandhi, ‘Anna Hazare’ declared to restart his protest against corruption. The protest which has the potential, power and support to be one of the largest ever revolution in India’s history. As of now, am not going to comment who’s right (…you will be reading that soon)….But something more interesting and that’s about the support that the protest has been able to garner.

No revolution or protest in independent India has ever seen such a youth participation, especially when it is lead by an old man (Anna Hazare in this case). A person, who till a few months back was unknown and could not even bank upon his celebrity status (like Baba Ramdev). So what was different this time around? It’s Technology. Team Anna didn't shied away from usin
g technology for the promotion of their cause and protest. The revolution, ‘India Against Corruption’ has inarguably become India’s biggest social revolution. Whether it’s social networks, bulk mails and SMS’s or phone lines, the campaign initiators and supporters have used all the networking channels available to ensure the success of the campaign. As is quoted in Wall Street Journal, the campaign is ‘previously unseen social media-fuelled revolution’. The movement has more than 8.2lakh likes on Facebook, while twitter has more modest 35000 followers. It's twitter page experience more than 3 tweets every minute. The missed call hotline number of the organization got more than 1.3crore rings. Just look through these statistics and you would come to know about the main cause of such a huge support IAC has been able to get. Their marketing team has ensured that no one is left unaware about the movement.

MYSPACE 

The event has clearly shown the power of communication, the power of social networks!!! They have shown that as is generally thought, technology is not only for the youth….it’s universal and should be used by other organizations in active manner to promote their cause. However, it has also increased the fear of stricter government control over the virtual lives of people, as they are becoming more and more wary of the consequences that such unmonitored communication could result in.

But as of now, am supporting ‘INDIA AGAINST CORRUPTION’.




See Also: Corruption Magnet

Slow Judiciary = No Judiciary

Including The Tale of Noida Extension

The fate of over a lakh homes in Delhi NCR, one of the largest industrial and residential hubs of India, is hanging nowhere due to judicial interference at a time when physical structure of buildings are almost ready and hundreds of crores have already been pumped into these projects. After sleeping over farmers PIL for almost a year, judges have suddenly woken up to their responsibility of providing justice to them and ordered the local governing authority and builders to return land to farmers citing their exploitation.

JUSTICE IS SUPREME

But what’s the logic behind such a decision at this point of time. Due to mass construction activities, the land has been rendered useless for farming and will be of no use to farmers. Even builders would not be in position of to provide refunds to investors due to losses that they will suffer in abandoning half built projects and if more such projects were stopped they would not be even able to relocate them.

So, who would you blame for such an irresponsible behaviour? Farmers!! Who filled the case or Realtors, who started construction after getting possession of land? Or may be the investors who dreamt of owning their own house? I would blame the JUDICIARY. Had judiciary acted on time I am sure that the loss would have been much less. But as it has been till now, the judicial machinery in India is cumbersome and is marred with delays. They never look at cases on urgent basis and infact just keep on giving future date in synchronization with the famous dialogue…..

तारीख पे तारीख| तारीख पे तारीख|

The GoI has to understand that by not investing in judiciary, it is denying people the right to have free and fair justice. Already Judge to people ratio in India at 6 per 10lakh people is one of the lowest in the world and is behind even Bangladesh. Going forward this could create resentment among people and can have serious social and political implications. I think, GoI has forgotten the famous saying,

‘Justice Delayed is Justice Denied’

There are lakhs of cases pending in courts; and many of them are of such a pity magnitude that if tried they could be solved through out of court settlements. Fortunately the process has started, albeit at too few places like Delhi and the response has been amazing. Disposing off thousands of cases in a day through ‘special courts’ is a not a mean achievement and the same should be applied elsewhere.

In addition to this, cases like that of traffic violation should not be referred to courts instead there should be separate office to deposit penalties. Also, jail terms of less than 1 year should be stopped and a steep fine should be imposed on culprits, this would prevent additional burdens on both courts and prisons.   

Is India Still A One Sport Nation?

World says that India loves cricket only.....It's true!!!!

  Let's get to its roots........ 

Olympics 2008 -> 3

CWG 2010 -> 101

Asian Games 2010 -> 64

These are the best figures in terms of medal wins that India has ever won in its sporting history of these tournaments. So, what has led to such a spike in India’s medal tally? Is India’s love for athletic games increasing? Is India no more only a cricketing nation? I would recommend you to not go with these numbers. In the past 2 years, Indian athletes may have performed at their best, but simply saying our best is not really the best. Even when compared to smaller nations like Japan and Korea, we are so much lagging them that it would be wrong to even compare our self with them.  

MAKE A LONG JUMP INDIA!!! 

Even after its best performance, we cannot say that our love for athletics is increasing. Because increase in popularity is coupled with increase in bench strength in games, which ultimately leads to more competition and thus better players. However, in our case it was not so. The medals were won only by a selected few who have already proved there mettle and rarely has there been any new surprise. Infact, I would say that India’s performance has nothing to do with our passion for sports(non-cricketing). I would dedicate India’s success to a few individuals and the government of India’s(GOI) support. 

GoI has woken up to the task of promoting sports and has increased spending on providing better sporting facilities and coaches. However, with the budget constraints these have been provided only to the well established players and athletes and not to budding ones. This reduces the interest among children who aspire to be a sportsperson.

So is only GOI is responsible for the pathetic condition of non-cricketing sports in our country? That would be wrong to say.  Cricket became popular after 1983 world cup win of India over famed West Indian team. However, there’s no such interesting and challenging win by India in any other sport. I could bet that if somehow India wins a FIFA cup, the game’s popularity will leap forge and would make football a rage in our country. But, is that going to happen? Could India do in football, what it once does in cricket in 1983? As of now, that seems to be difficult.

But I would like to add that one time win is not all. It has to be augmented with consistently good performance in order to make a sport popular and there can’t be a better example than hockey to prove that. Once popular, the Indian national game hockey has now reduced to shambles. Consistent losses and no major tournament wins have dented its fan base and peoples love for the game tumbled. After all, we need to accept that love can’t be blind forever, it has to produce results and if favourable ones don’t come, love can’t last for too long.

So, I would conclude that it’s the responsibility of all the stakeholders to popularize a game and not just of governments to do that. Also promoting sports would help in reducing health problems especially because India has become world capital of diabetes. But, that would be distant reason for popularising sports and would require political foresightedness.

And as of now…..Yes India is a single sport nation!!!!