Why he alone? May be, all his colleagues and the boss are just this?
See their Bhopal gas tragedy deals?
They are, to quote one senior editor and journalist, M.J.Akbar, with slight variation of the words and phrases, the protegees of the Prime Minister and the MNCs. Ranking leaders of the World Bank Alumni Association and senior advocates of multinational corporate interests!
They are not just insensitive; they are all just focused on the next election. The Group of Ministers, the GOM, calls Akbar, as the device to buy peace and turn it into another election device to win the next elections.
See the ministers too represented in the GOM, all green horns, no experience or even the gravitas that is needed for the situation.
The PM, Sonia or Rahul don’t open their mouths at all, they retain an imperial indifference or a cowardly silence?
The GOM propose what is obviously a simpleton’s formula; take it up through a “curative” petition. By the way P.Chidambaram is a lawyer and he may be comfortable to confuse or browbeat the unquestioning public with his lawyer’s jargon.
But pray what is the curative petition will cure?
There are too many lawyers in the UPA and that is why we, after 26 years of total negligence and total indifference to the “criminals” who must have been identified and punished in time, now after 26 years of negligence, now come up with some patch work solutions of catching the thief, extradition of Anderson, at this distance of time is next to impossible. It is one weaker sing of passing the buck.
The other lawyer, Abishek Singhvi has also let the cat out of the bag. Here is another heavyweight closer to Mrs.Gandhi who used the Congress party letterhead to write a lawyer’s opinion for the Dow Chemicals! He first justified and when the heat went up he changed tack. Yet, he came into the limelight!
Now, as for Kapil Sibal, the HRD minister he seems to be out of controversy and yet he is now finding himself more and more in the sea!
His department has no clue; it seems, for the expanding private and commercial market for education.
The PM, as again, or rather once more, stopped talking!
We don’t hear anymore about the Sam Pitroda’s knowledge commission reports or its suggestions.
Or, about what the Prime Minister was hawking about the “world class” universities!
What has happened to the world class universities anyway?
Or, for the foreign universities that were rushing into the Indian market?
All we hear now are the local players, every other political operator in India, an MLA or an MP or even an active party worker is now an education entrepreneur!
So, this year, we are told that a total of 700-odd applications have been received by the AICTE setting up new engineering colleges!
That is quite a large number.
Though the press report if patchy, it is easy to imagine that most of the would get the nod, considering the gross corruption in the education sector. Or, rather we have to rechristen the department as commercial education sector.
What other education is now left to?
From LKG to the top university setting up, we see the private players in the forefront. Most of the successful education entrepreneurs have also become MPs and also one prominent education entrepreneur from the South have become the blue eyed boy the dominant ally and also Cabinet Minister now!
We don’t know from this distance of space, who else is all MPs and ministers from the education segment.
The point is that you can find an education entrepreneur, from the humble one-man institution in some remote corners to the metropolitan areas where the education entrepreneurs are quite daring and bold, as they lack utterly any education to speak for!
The more illiterate the education entrepreneur, the more successful he or she is!
Throw in the religion tag, and then you have what you set out to prove.
It is the heady mix of religion, state patronage, and the caste factor and the godliness of the man or the woman; you have the impregnable education empires.
Some religious mutts run as many as few hundred of institutions each!
How on earth you can manage to run the educations in such large numbers?
This question might be countered with the counter question, how the state manages to run such large numbers?
So, the old education institutions are getting commercialised and the new ones start with the no-holds- barred plain altruism.
Education is money, plain cash. To cite one example from the South. There are school teachers-turned education entrepreneurs who collect the ready cash in gunny bags and carry them to the banks. One entrepreneur drew checks everyday to the tune of few crores, yes, every day from his bank account…..
Enough to say, that Mr.Kapil Sibal, the hon. minister who started with some bold moves, now seems to have settled for the market mechanism to do its job!
This what we call neoliberalism and market fundamentalism!
Image source : topnews.com.sg