Fittest minds at (the most) needy places

Why is that - invariably - concerned persons are never the persons concerned?
If you follow Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman's columns on the US economy, you'd think - why isn't he in Barack Obama's team? Then the US President could have avoided such sittings with the ever-hungry media. (though it was refreshing to see a famous political figure admitting mistakes - see Obama on his selection of tax defaulters for his team).
Only then would the power - to do the right thing by the masses (not the classes) - would be in the right hands, and the 'person concerned' is actually a 'concerned person'.

There are many such examples -
Follow P Sainath's studies and articles and the painful statistics put together by him, and you'll wonder - why is he not the Minister for Agriculture? (conversely of course why is the Minister of Agriculture not the one doing all those studies and following up on them?)

And another - Sunita Narain and India's Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) should be located at Paryavaran Bhavan, where the present occupants, Ministry of Environment and Forests seems to prefer tying itself into knots with Red Tape. Or, seeing CSE's latest 'truths revealed' - The Satyam in our Oil - CSE will fit even in the Ministry of Health, GOI.

We all know - regretfully - what didn't happen four years ago - Al Gore, the concerned candidate (at least a candidate with enough concern) was prevented from becoming the president concerned. Because not enough voters cared.

Speaking naively, am I? Then at least admit that it is informed naïveté

But let's look ahead. More concerned citizens should vote to ensure that the most concerned mind is at the right place, empowered to act as (s)he should.

Comments

  1. RAJI MUTHUKRISHNAN06 February, 2009

    Not naive at all, Swarna. Very just and pertinent observations - which in turn should have been made by the informed minds who manage the show.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Indrani08 February, 2009

    Very true... we often come across daily events and wish: why this, why not this?

    ...and I was just imagining: what if Obama comes blog hopping? ...lol!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Joseph Pulikotil08 February, 2009

    Hi Swarna :)

    Very interesting post.

    But in a country like India where majority of the voters are illiterate and poor, money and muscle power play a very big role. Otherwise, we will not have corrupt and criminals elected.

    Best wishes :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Kat10 February, 2009

    Concern provoking blog, for the concerned.

    May be we should think of making one vote of a graduate, equivalent to (say) 10 votes...

    (would presonally prefer a scientist's vote equal to a million vote :)))

    ReplyDelete
  5. Swarna11 February, 2009

    Thanks, all
    Indrani, I really wish the US Prez would!
    Kat - Apply for the post of CEC very soon!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Femin Susan12 February, 2009

    Hi.....
    How awesome! Thanks for sharing

    ReplyDelete

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