As an Indian I asked myself what should I wish for my India in 2014 which should be doable/ achievable and a work in progress. India doesn’t need a magic wand what it needs is a serious change of course. It needs a new thought, it needs a new approach. There has been a lot of the same stuff and a lot of similar deviations. This must change.
- In 2014 lesser number of Indians should blame the state for their sorrows and miseries.
- Importance of politics and politicians in running our household should reduce significantly.
- State shouldn’t add to stress, the minute this comes down productivity of each citizen would rise.
- Coming out to help our fellow citizens in difficulty shouldn’t expose us to harassment and corruption. The fear of establishment should go.
- Merit must prevail over favoritism wherever state has an authority to ensure that.
- We must drop cloak of pseudo secularism and go in for generic secularism. We must become a nation where state doesn’t practice any religion or favors any, it allows for comfort zones to establish on the basis of ones own life preferences.
- As a nation, we must incubate a culture of admiration, appreciation and association. People must be encouraged to bring Triple A into everyday life.
- Information about the public should be public. Abuse or for the sake of “public interest” should not fuel vested interests.
- Leadership should be inclusive and inclusive alone. It should not be extractive or intrusive or exclusive. Just plain simple inclusive.
- All Indians be brought to appreciate a few concepts as mantras for our nations growth, being frugal & creating wealth are two such concepts which are least understood by Indians, across economic and social classes.
- We must make our VIPs understand that they are one amongst many and they don’t hold our destinies in their hand and they don’t need to.
- Projects which touch public must ensure direct public participation specifically in electricity, roads, sewage, health care and law and order.
- We must bring in a system of replacing our elected representatives on performance appraisal basis. A transparent system for awarding points should be built in and if any elected representative goes under the minimum acceptability criteria. He must go.
- Lesser number of our aged/ seniors should be looked at as unwanted by the state. State must have outreach programs to make their miserable years, golden.
- No new horror memories of massacres, gang-rapes and communal riots are seeded.
- Religious scriptures and their interpretations are not distorted by anyone for provoking hatred.
- None of our rivers should have our dead floating in, and their half eaten bodies waiting for more animals and birds to finish them for all times to come.
- Our holy rivers like Yamuna & Ganga must not remain drains or sewage carriers.
- No mountain should be stripped naked to the end that one cloud burst and thousands perish.
- India is a republic, India should be a well established republic with all its institutions tuned towards betterment of its people.
- Areas such as land acquisition & records, where corruption has been institutionalized must be made 100% transparent and systems put in place to institutionalize betterment instead.
- Legit demands shouldn’t need illegal means to be met.
- Economic interests of our nation shouldn’t be given-up for keeping friends of our politicians in business.
- The homeless of the nation are nation’s own, they shouldn’t be made to rot and be treated as hopeless.
This is a work in progress, would take several sittings before I am done.