Politics, Corruption, Media & Stocks

A few days ago, 11 Indian parliamentarians were caught red handed on camera while taking bribes to ask specific questions in Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha. Shocking, as the news came, there were many reactions and responses to the "Breaking" news. Most of them cried foul about the way all the politicians and parliamentarians work and earn. Many to the ridiculous extent like the one below : I heard this from one friend: "Yaar, I wish the bomb hoax would have been a real bomb. It would have killed all the corrupts". Quite a shameless comment, I think. While thinking about the whole catch-bribery-on-the-cam operation, I came across a really nice article in the Sakal newspaper. It talked about the 11 corrupt parliamentarians and how the media was using them to create a wrong impression of the entire political establishment. The argument was that it is not correct to generalise such things. Agreed that those 11 people were corrupt and their acts must be denounced. However, the parliament has 8-900 members. And just because a few were caught on camera, it does not mean that all of them are equally corrupt and the whole system is rotten. It will be very unfair to many of them.

In the meanwhile, we really need to understand the role of media in a society. Such sting operations are used to increase the channel ratings. Of course they expose a corrupt angle of India's political system. But then, do those same channels spend some time showing the positive side of the coin? The Indian governance system is one of the best democratic and respected establishment in the world. Should not these things too be imprinted on the minds of the youth? What pride is the young generation going to have in the country, if the only thing they see on TV is such targeted yellow journalism? I think this is quite a serious allegation and the TV media must take steps to ensure that they behave in a responsible manner in the society and not just increase their own viewership. As compared, the print media, in my opinion is really good and I have begun to prefer newspapers like Indian Express and Sakal, a lot more than any news channel.

Talking about corruption, I think it starts at the base, with every citizen. Let's take a common example. You don't carry a driving licenense one day. A cop catches you. Fine is 400/-. He offers you a short cut: A bribe of 100 and you are let off. How many people would take the pains of paying 400, going home, producing the license, and so on? Is the person giving the bribe not as guilty as the one accepting it? This will be seen in so many places like passport verification, customs check after foreign visits, & so on. Unless the corruption is driven out of the mind of the common citizen, it cannot be driven out of the whole system.

In the meanwhile, I got 50 shares allocated from the ICICI bank FPO. Its the first time I got shares in an IPO and so I am hapy. However, the immediate returns are not as high as the other issues, so it will be interesting to see if it makes sense to sell these shares right now. In general, the stock market is on a huge roll. It has set aside all speculations for the last few months and set newer records every month. Let's see how it behaves from now on up until the Year End. That will be a big test for the emerging Indian Markets. Happy Trading :-)

Cheers,
- Tosh