Education and Character

The wikileaks diplomatic cables re-leaked in India by The Hindu has created a furore in Parliament and a disgust amongst the public. The main opposition BJP has got unexpected support from it's main detractors the left parties and the so-called secular outfits.

It is appalling to listen to the Hon'ble Prime Minister Manmohan Singh defending the cash for votes corruption in Parliament. The PM, highly educated Executive Head of a State today, has degraded himself morally and has reiterated the age old lament that Universities impart knowledge but need not necessarily build character. The wikileaks documents accessed and published by 'The Hindu' exposes that the "generally accurate" diplomatic cables of the US diplomats say that money has been paid to ensure the Congress Government gets the enough numbers to get through the confidence vote.

The argument of the PM refuting this allegation is meek and stupid. He says he had not authorized anyone to pay MPs to vote in favour of his Government, so that allegation is false. If that is the regular practice in his Cabinet, there are couple of questions for him.

• Has he authorized the malpractices in awarding the 2G license?
• Has he authorized the untenable appointment of tainted Thomas as CVC? 
• Has he authorized the notorious corruption in CWG?

Or is this line of defence a whine of a blank shell that the defacto powers in this ruling setup have authorized these malpractices and there is no point in questioning him for their actions. It is known to all that he is a dummy  yes-man for the Gandhi family. And he has got himself into the web of their power play to loot the nation in every way, day by day. Coming out and voicing his objections to the perversions in governance now is not an option for him, since he has been part of the sullied setup for quite a while.

He has exhibited that he had successfully killed his ability of rational thinking for surviving in this distorted democratic set up, by arguing that the people have voted him back to power after the pay to vote victory in Parliament, so he need not answer anyone. So, any rogue, rascal and freebooter could by all corrupt means win an election and claim that all legal proceedings against him should be dropped as he has the people's mandate.

Godhra lawsuit against Modi should be quashed under this logic as he has won 3 consecutive elections after that incident. Lawsuit for demolishing the disputed structure in Ayodhya against Vajpayee, Advani, Joshi and others should have been dropped as they have won consecutive elections after that incident. Election victories in this nation is not truly democratic. We have lists of corrupt, perverted and distorted practices in the name of democracy right from the 1950 election. People are not giving their free and fair decisions, but their decision is manipulated by opinion building one way or the other.

So, election victories could not be taken as a vindication for criminal offenses, rather election victories or losses could be taken as a verdict on political stands and philosophies, that too only to a meager extent. So, the PM's claim of vindication is a farce. This shows that the highly educated man, well celebrated for his education, has debauched from the way of rational thinking which is a fruit of education. This stands proof for the age old adage, that certificates and citations won't make you educated, but only the character which you display during testing times show the real personality. Now, we can safely conclude that Dr. Manmohan Singh is a well read man but not a man of unquestionable character.

Alas, the nation has lost another man of integrity to the omni-corrupt politics.

Fishermen fished out! #tnfisherman

It is kind of regular to get in news that Fishermen of TamilNadu are getting killed by Sri Lankan Navy for crossing the IMBL. While observing the media reports on the heinous acts of killing of Indian Fishermen by Sri Lankan Navy, it is disturbing that the acts have been reported not as killing but death of TN Fishermen. What is the media trying to do with a soft stand on an issue of life and death of our countrymen? Is it the Soviet bred attitude of understating the problems and exaggerating the praises? So seems the quality of job of on of the pillars of democracy. 

Article 21 of the Constitution of India states “No person shall be deprived of his life except according to the due process established by law.” The Government has a responsibility to keep this constitutional promise up as the people manning it have been sworn in, inter alia, to do this. But the Honorable Prime Minister of India is silent, as always, in this sensitive issue of the killings of our fishermen. He is also, as could not be expected otherwise, silent on the barbarian act of burning alive of a Deputy Collector in Maharashtra. He is silent on the price rise issue. He is silent on the black money mess up. Moot question is has he been sworn to the law of Omerta?


Well, the fishermen of our nation go fishing to the sea as it is their livelihood. They contribute to the economy, trade and exports, not to forget the income they generate for the national economy. Hope our economist PM understands the importance of fishermen, if this issue is looked at from the economy perspective. So, people who contribute to the economic activity, generate income for the nation, contribute to foreign currency reserves deserve to be treated with some respect. But, the Government doesn't care about their loss of lives and justify their killing by citing the killers lame duck excuses as crossing of IMBL.


Where in the world fishermen are killed for crossing IMBL except in Palk straits? Even bitter conditions exist in EU about maritime borders. Slovania and Croatia have dispute over their MBL, but they have decided not to get their general public suffer on their strategic political disputes. 

Here we don't have any maritime border disputes with Sri Lanka. Katchathivu giveaway in 1974 was a strategic blunder for escaping from Sarkaria Commission.Under the treaty agreement of 1974, Indian fishermen have rights to rich fishing grounds in the territorial waters of Sri Lanka around Kachchativu. But, those rights were not honored by Sri Lanka, and the dishonor was not taken seriously neither by the Government of India for violation of agreement nor by the Government of TamilNadu for it's people left to suffer.

On 2009, Tamil Nadu Government declared that the area is controlled by the Sri Lanka against the original pact of allowing Indian fishermen to access the water of Sri Lanka. But this declaration has not even the value of plea to the Sri Lankan Government as it has no legal/diplomatic binding. Any such declarations and talk of action should come from the Government of India to have a binding on International Relations. Tamil Nadu has 40 representatives in the Parliament just to do these kind of jobs. (But do some of those 40 know their JD?)

Between December 9-15, 2010, there was a couple of dozens of incidents having SL Navy harassing Indian Fishermen near Rameshwaram by taking their GPS devices and destroying their boat were exposed. Approximately 1.5 Crores rupees of damages including fish loss was recorded. Due to this Indian Navy arrested 14 SL Navy Officials who entered the border of India with unauthorized ships and Indian Navy Boat blew off one of its tugs which used to attack Indian Fishermen. What was done further? Nobody knows.


The vociferous media of India speaks in a feeble voice about this issue. The media network in TamilNadu controlled by the second family of DMK, which shouted in high decibels when MK was arrested, now boasts pride in reporting that the Chief Minister has written letters and sent telegrams on this issue. The content of the letters or telegrams are as secret as the talks with K'taka on the Cauvery issue. Nobody knows whether those letters/telegrams were informative or requesting consideration to do something or demanding firm action except for those who wrote and those who read.


The Indian Navy and the Sri Lankan Navy have spoken about the plight of the fishermen also, when they discussed about the security concerns post mortem the LTTE. But there was no follow up from the TN Government and the Opposition parties of TN on this matter, raising concerns with the GoI for furthering the talks to ensure safety of the shore dwellers of India. The state Government seems to be least concerned about the fishermen issue as the usually vociferous MK remains relatively silent on the plight of the fishermen.


The opposition parties try too make an election issue of this bereavement, but genuine concern for fishermen is only palpable with the netizens as they don't have any restrictions in registering their thoughts. As I've observed while commuting through the city, I've found many people who are so concerned about the fishermen inter alia other burning issues, and agree that the Government and politicians are not doing enough. They are concerned but they were unable to explain. Few of them are net savvy, so they agreed to tweet and write messages in FB. 

Those who are on the flop side of the digital divide feel that the media are not doing enough in bringing the plight of the fishermen to the notice of the public. A lady told me that the media should have given at least 25% of the hype it gave to Spectrum gate. The general feel of the public is that the grandpas of Indian politics Karunanidhi, Manmohan Singh and the likes should retire and young and energetic people with a sense of responsibility should take over. We can't expect sense of responsibility with Karuna's offspring or the Gandhi family scions.


The Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj has told that she would discuss with External affairs minister S.M. Krishna about this issue, but Krishna would be of little help, has his performance so far, to be taken into account. Jayalalitha may be of help at this juncture, but how far would depend upon the advisers she employ and entertain. Extremely critical of the Lankan Tamils and averse to their presence are Mr. Cho. Ramaswamy and the likes. If JJ takes their advise in this matter, we may simply leave her off. Dr. Subramaninan Swamy would be of help in getting the Government to act in this issue. 


Netizens should not stop by just tweeting, blogging, feed backing but still we have to make this as a movement to ensure the shore dwelling brethren lives a safe and tranquil life. Challenges of life could be natural of which we have no control, but such artificial and atrocious challenges need to be rooted out. Let our Navy and our Coast Guard act on humanitarian grounds, without political interference. Things would grow better. For that we need political will. But Karuna is busy writing his will to share the party and his fortune amongst his offspring. 


Some tweeters called for boycotting the ensuing TN assembly elections. That is not wise. Those who have grown by bogus voting and booth capturing would thrive on this opportunity with the power in hand at the state and at call at the center. 49-O is the best option, if people are not confident of any party to help in any matter. It is the life of our brethren, so it is for us to take them along and take the issue forward to a benefiting solution. 


A request: When you tweet add #tnfisherman to your tweets. In Face Book join the Save fishermen page and express your support. Support the signature campaign to save Tamil Nadu's fishermen here.

Vande Matharam!

A true soldier needs both military and spiritual training. You must, all of you, so train yourselves and your comrades that every soldier will have unbounded confidence in himself, will be conscious of being immensely superior to the enemy, will be fearless of death, and will have sufficient initiative to act on his own in any critical situation should the need arise.


For an enslaved people, there can be no greater pride, no higher honor, than to be the first soldier in the army of liberation. But this honor carries with it a corresponding responsibility and I am deeply conscious of it. I assure you that I shall be with you in darkness and in sunshine, in sorrow and in joy, in suffering and in victory. For the present, I can offer you nothing except hunger, thirst, privation, forced marches and death. But if you follow me in life and in death, as I am confident you will, I shall lead you to victory and freedom. It does not matter who among us will live to see India free. It is enough that India shall be free and that we shall give our all to make her free. May God now bless our Army and grant us victory in the coming fight ! 

- Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

Army Day

I salute the brethren who risk their life to ensure we live without any problems.

I pay homage to those who had martyred their life - to ensure we live a good life - by lighting a lamp!

Maa thuje pranaam.
Chant Vande maatharam-and
Bow your head before Mother India.

Free education: A Pathway to loot in TamilNadu?

The Government's delivery of service, in other words its duty, is pathetic right from January 26,1950. With 60 years gone by, we could have improved it a lot, but sad fact is the Government machinery was functioning as a toddler during the initial 2 decades, then it turned out to be an insensitive teenager, but suddenly it is now functioning like an old man working on his own obituary! The affected people are the general public who ceaselessly express unwavering trust the Government to do something to let them be somebody in the world, as they have no other go.

Food materials rot in carelessly maintained storage, but Government would stick to the "No Free Lunch" policy. The prices of food items sky rocket, yet the Government would look at it only as a matter of taming the numbers. The cantankerous neighbors would do all the provocative acts to question the sovereignty of the nation, but the Government would sit silent in talks with them hoping for a tranquil neighborhood.

The freebies to sustain vote and hence power by Government of TamilNadu, though making the people lazy in one view, remains only in tricky words making a mockery of the system and the people who trust the Governments words, fools. The bureaucracy is well trained to give better governance but used to make the governance a farce by the political clan. The rulers promise heaven but that comes with a T&C apply caveat, which is almost concealed from the public. The argument that this is a political ploy, programmed in a never ending a loop, to make the people suffer and for the Government to then step in for their relief is debatable but with known results.

While reading through one of my friend Saravanan's blog, I found a kind of a usual event in the Government's service delivery failures, effected by the T&C caveat. The TamilNadu Government has promised free education for the first graduate child from a family. Many families have buoyed at this announcement and have taken their children to be admitted to colleges, despite college education being economically unaffordable for them. But colleges have collected fees, exorbitant from the poor man's stand point, though admitting students under the Government's free first graduate scheme.

When inquired upon about this controversy, people who are in the know say that the Government has offered only free tuition fees and not an all expenses paid education. The Government earlier in 2008 had conditions in reimbursing tuition fees, special fees, non-refundable compulsory fees as fixed by the Government and the examination fees to students, but had waived all those conditions it had for the free education in 2009.

With a view to encouraging students who do not have any graduate in their families so far and pursue professional education after securing admission under the single window system, the Government has decided to bear the entire tuition fee payable by these students in government and private engineering, medical, dental, agricultural, veterinary and law colleges, irrespective of their caste or income, said the Governor in his address to the State Assembly on 6th of January 2011.

The problem with the service delivery system of the Government is that the policies take a different form when implemented. What happens in the middle is the imperious attitude the bureaucrats carry through from the British Imperial ruling setup. The politicians concentrating on their Return on Investments, predominantly financially, pay little attention to such issues faced by minions.

The college under public dissent now, was seen in the news for all good reasons till recently. But the circular (circulated in Saravanan's blog post) rings alarm bells. The items mentioned in the fee structure gets one to wonder what ways one has for minting money after starting a college. A fee is charged for verification of different certificates and marks statements, Insurance premium (who took it for whom?) is charged, but whether they provide policy details is a question worth the 2G loot.

Which academic society admits people at Rs.300/- is a question for people in the know to answer. Also there is an over head other fee for Rs.10000/- (Rupees Ten Thousand only). Some say that Academic Society in colleges include Fine arts club, Debate Club, Quiz club, Microsoft campus club, IE(I) student chapter, IEEE forum, CSI forum, Reader club etc. Students from that college say that the management had itemized that other fee of Rs.10000/- as charges for campus interviews to be conducted at their final year of study.

When a college can afford to give all such academic club facilities for 300 bucks, what is reason for charging 10000 bucks for conducting campus interviews? That defies logic given to understand the sluggish hiring and plummeting recruitment through campuses. Also, insider information, unconfirmed though, say that the Government which should have paid Rs.32500/- had paid only Rs.20000/- to the college for 183 students under this scheme.

Reason cited for this under payment was financial crunch for the Government! Unbelievable, given fact that the State Government had come up with a surplus budget couple of years ago!!! The fiscal responsibility initiatives were also scuttled citing various laughable reasons, so no tough financial measures are reason for this short funding except the obvious, mismanagement.

The defenses coming in favor of the college under discussion are of known nature. They have not violated any rules. They are reputed institution. They have conducted many international technical seminars and are part of many international academic forums. Price waterhouse Coopers, the MNC audit firm was auditors for Satyam computers. Both PwC and Satyam were reputed, part of international fora, so on and so forth. Still, we had the mammoth scam for which PwC also lost its reputation for being a mute spectator/silent partner. So, reputation and membership of forums are not immunity against wrong doing.

Yet, we have to blame the Government for this mess up, since the policy was clear, but implementation was a bad mess up. This is a serious problem with Governance in India. Policies take a different form when they are implemented and the beneficiaries end up bearing the brunt. Reason? The carrying on of the imperious attitude by the bureaucracy right from the days of the Imperial rule. Bureaucracy is trained to assist in delivering better Governance, but it is used to assist the betterment of the rulers.

People are readying a petition to the State Education minister for help. This may help as it is election time and we can expect a verbal reaction from the rulers, since we have hardly seen any concrete action on any issues in the near past. We may trust the opposition parties to take the issue up, but the solution to the issue could not be guaranteed, since it may end up becoming a political tussle.

I suggested to write to Kapil Sibal, but with him inseparably entangled in the spectrum of error reporting right from CAG on 2G to CAT 2010 results, he would not be of much help. Cannot expect PM to help as he would simply reiterate his doctrine of no free lunch despite pulses rotting and the human pulses plummeting. The CM of TamilNadu may talk evoking emotion on this issue, but when it comes to action he would goof up, habitually.

We cannot trust the TN Government for clear action on this case, as we have evidences of inertia even in sensitive issues like the business of education. The Government is famous for its preference of sloth in the school fees issue. Committee after committee has been formed and decisions are deferred sine die. The Government practices the management saying "When you cannot commit on something, form a committee."

The judiciary could help, but the process is unduly time consuming. Blaming the college won't work as it is the Government which has played a kind of crossword puzzle with its promises and the sentiments of the poor people. So, what could be done in this case to get justice? Threaten with your votes as it is election time, people! Nothing else would work. Threaten the rulers with dire electoral consequences by blowing this issue up!

Jurisdiction of the judiciary

The Apex court ordered to broaden the time span of inquiry into the 2G licensing scam. It also has instructed that the CBI to report to it at regular intervals on the progress made in the inquiry. Some days ago when the CBI counsel had offered to submit the agency's team investigating the 2G matter to the monitoring of SCI, but the bench had declined that offer. Now, the Apex court had taken up the case under it's watch and has given instructions which sound like lecturing a new recruit on how to do a job.

It is not normal for the SCI to dictate modus operandi to any law enforcing agency inquiring into any serious charges. But now the court has taken up the inquiry which adds to the burden of the existing ship load of cases pending before the judiciary. This move comes as the confidence in the executive  for the petitioners and the bench as well was non-existent and eroded respectively.

When the counsel for the PIL petitioners asked for a special team to investigate the matter, the bench said that for the moment it was against constituting any special team to probe the issue and had instead decided to monitor the probe all by itself by calling for reports on the status of the probe being conducted by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

"The CBI shall, if it has already not registered a first information report (FIR) in the context of the alleged irregularities committed in the grant of licences from 2001 to 2006-07, now register a case and conduct thorough investigation. Also  probe as to how several ineligible applicants got licences in 2008 and who was responsible for the same," said the judges.

Apart from conducting a probe into the issues highlighted by the CVC and the CAG report with regards to the allotments made by Raja, the court also instructed the CBI to probe as to why the TRAI and the DoT did not take action against licensees who sold their stakes for thousands of crores and others who did not fulfil the roll-out obligations.

The petitioners had requested the court to take the assistance of one or two officers of unimpeachable integrity in monitoring the investigation being conducted by the CBI. But the bench said that it would decide on this request based on the first progress report of the CBI to be submitted on 10/2/2011, in a sealed envelope. This may leave the media in dismay for being deprived of exclusive scoops. Point to note here is that, the court has not expressed unswerving confidence on the CBI, but has given it a chance to prove its mettle. Shame on an institution which has been doing the policing job for decades, but deserving due to the recent debaucheries from impartiality by the CBI. 

But the slap on the face for the disgraced minister A.Raja came when his  lame duck defence of religiously following the predecessors was turned down, with the judges snapping his counsel saying the question was of violation of policy and not of following the policy as argued by him. Yet the court decided to widen the spectrum of the probe to allotments made by Raja's predecessors from 2001.

The Apex court also censured the Delhi High court for dismissing the petition seeking CBI probe into the 2G spectrum allocation case. “The High Court has committed serious error in dismissing the writ petition. Prima facie, there was sufficient material supported by documents to proceed on the allegation,” the bench observed.

Also, the Apex court has ordered the investigating agencies to probe the transfer of dual technology — CDMA and GSM, opining that while the notification for the dual technology was issued on October 19, 2007, one of the service provider was given the permission a day earlier.

The investigation will also cover huge loans by public sector banks to the beneficiary firms and if DoT officials were signatory to the licence agreements, the bench said. The bench instructed the CBI and ED to carry out investigations without being influenced by any individual, their ranks, functionaries and agencies. This instruction gains importance as the pamolein tainted CVC Thomas has earlier offered to recuse himself from teh 2G specturm license scam, when his credentials were questioned on the grounds of impeccable integrity.

The Government cannot go to the SCI now and submit that they would ensure a free and fair investigation in this case, since their commitment to free and fair investigations took a severe beating when the AG told the court that impeccable integrity could never be considered as a criteria for top jobs of Government.

The CBI might not be able to complete the probe within the agreed deadline as the ambit of the inquiry has been widened to cover the deals right from 2001. The evidences and leads for the Raja wrongs are readily available with recent documents, CVC & CAG reports and the Radia tapes, but still the CBI has to start from square one in the cases of Raja's predecessors. Also the money swindled through 2G scam was routed through hawala investment allegedly to European countries including Netherlands and to the countries in the Arab Gulf including Libya, it is known from the preliminary investigation.So, keeping track of them and trailing them would be a time consuming international policing exercise.

Also, the court has accepted the argument that there should be a nexus between the 2G beneficiaries and the realty loan scam, since most of the firms those got the 2G licenses were  realty firms and they were given exorbitant amount of loans flaunting the basic banking process followed in loans given to ordinary citizens. The basic structure of the constitution was shaken here as citizens of India were being treated differently for some illicit considerations.

The CM of TamilNadu is singing the old tune of action upon proof of guilty, which is a clear departure from his earlier stand of caste based discrimination by aggressive upper castes. The allegations of property worth hundreds of crores have been transferred to the CM's family members were refuted with reasons those fit the definition of the word unreasonable. How could the person handling the property matters of the CM's second wife get the power of attorney for property worth billions with the CM's family not even noticing it.






Well, with the SCI taking up the investigation in it's hands, we can expect not only some incisive questions to the conspirators, colluders, perpetrators and criminals but action too. But, come to think of the investigation process, we can only hope that files do not go missing in this case as in the Adarsh Housing scam.

The most boasted impeccable honesty of the Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh took a dip when he, in May 2010, infamously said that he felt no further inquiry against Raja is needed as Raja himself had told him nothing wrong had happened. Now, with the Supreme Court of India taking up the job of monitoring inquiries to ensure impartiality and justice to the job, his Government has lost it's credibility. This confirms one thing. Dr. Manmohan Singh has stepped into the shoes of the late President Faqruddin Ali Ahmed stamping his approval in anything that came to him for consent. The de facto authority then was Indira Gandhi, now it is Sonia Gandhi.

The jurisdiction of the judiciary has to be widened due to the amoral attitude of the Government and the normative economist attitude of the Prime Minister. We need a Government which cares for the people and a PM who walks the talk rather than the one who doesn't even talk when a run is needed.

Quo Vadis, my dear nation?

We are witnessing disturbing trends in doing business with the judiciary of the nation. Judiciary is the last resort of justice that a common man still trusts. The Apex court of the nation strives to live up to that confidence, come to talk of the recent observations and judgments. We do have a complaint pending inquiry in the Apex court on the questionable probity of some of our former CJs. But that doesn't give anyone the authority to show disrespect, or threaten the judiciary in any manner.s

We have the Attorney General, the top law officer of the Government, making statements threatening the judiciary of questioning its integrity when questions were raised on the Government's questionable decisions. The CVC appointment which is per se non compliant with the regulations, that a person with unquestionable integrity should man that office. The CJI questioned the appointment of Mr.P.J.Thomas as CVC based on service jurisprudence. How a person, who could not even be considered for promotion, was appointed as the top officer to oversee the investigation in all the corruption cases in the nation, with judicial decision still pending on the charge sheet which blames him with criminal conspiracy, since 2002?

When the first bench of the nation's top judicial body asked the Government whether the procedure of checking for impeccable integrity was followed in this appointment, the AG retorted if the criterion of impeccable honesty and integrity in appointments to higher positions has to be followed in every case then all judicial postings would come under scrutiny. This is a clear threat to the judiciary, meaning that if the actions of Government could be questioned on the integrity grounds by the judiciary, the Government could question the actions of the judiciary on the same grounds. The question went unasked in the court room was "Does your statement include the appointment of the AG also?" But that was asked by Justice (Retd) V.R. Krishna Iyer in his article in the Hindu condemning the AG for his insinuations.


This is like talking in a political meeting challenging an opponent with embarrassing exposes whenever the opponent questions your activities. Is this the signal the Government is sending to the world that it has scant respect for the judiciary? The kind of signal sent by the Government that any sort of insinuations could be made against the nation's judiciary and still defend such insinuations as abstract legal argument shows the quality of the people manning the Government. This is not expected from a man supposedly of impeccable integrity, Dr.Manmohan Singh. Is he doing all these on his own or is he operated with a remote control? In both cases the nation doesn't deserve either an arrogant personality or a meek personality holding a powerful responsibility.

Someone has picked up the cue from the Government's action in the Supreme court and had justified their actions questioning the trustworthiness of the judiciary and making it official with the UN. It is none other than the infamous human rights activist Teesta Setalvad.


She has, in the Godhra and related cases, sent 2 letters to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which were originally addressed to the SIT chief, complaining about the poor witness protection in the Godhra cases and even contained information of how her former aide Rais Khan Pathan was bought over by the other side. The amicus curiae Harish Salve said that the SIT was disturbed over the constant airing of grievances to the international body. Of course this could put further impediments with too many institutions with different perspectives monitoring an investigation. When the top legal body of the nation monitors an investigation, another is unnecessary and too many monitoring would spoil the course of investigation.

The lawyer for Ms.Setalvad chose to justify the airing of grievances with the UN body, which prompted the SC take serious exception and at one point the bench asked, "Will Switzerland provide you witness protection and not the Supreme Court?” When Setalvad's lawyer said that her NGO was associated with the Geneva based UNCHR, the court said irrespective of associations, the SC would not allow outside bodies to oversee what it was overseeing. Such an insensitive approach towards a sensitive matter brings into question the lawyering skills of Ms. Setalvad in the first place, which should be a worry of practicing lawyers, though.

If a lawyer chooses to dishonor the court she was approaching for justice, what is the point in still pursuing the matter with the same judiciary? She resorts to dilly-dallying when it comes to appeal against judgments not in her. She tries to paste a picture that the High Court of Gujarat is untrustworthy and she has to take the Supreme Court's order for every step in the case, but yet approaching the UN perhaps to caution the Supreme Court of an international repercussion if she feels she was not given a fair deal. This kind of manipulating the system may work with common man with little legal knowledge and no political or other powers to muster, but when dealing with the Apex judiciary of the nation manipulation means mean attitude.

The reason behind such insensitive activities is the Union Government, as it, through it's top legal representative, questioned the very integrity of the judiciary, in the veil of replying to an incisive question and tried to cover it up as discussing an abstract legal point. Suspicion about the probity and impartiality of the judiciary has been expressed openly by the AG in doing so.

The  Government has a lot of explaining to do here. Was that statement by AG reflect the view of the Government? If so, what are the steps taken to check the impeccable integrity and other ethical issues on appointments to highest offices? Or as the AG told it is not a matter of concern, would the Government take steps to amend the law suitably to the effect that impeccable integrity is not a concern for holding any high office in the nation?

The moot question in the mind of common man is "Quo Vadis, my dear nation?" My question is where are you leading the nation, Mr. Prime Minister? If you don't, Sir, please ask your Boss and let the nation know, as we the citizens trust that it would not be a classified information!