Kleptocracy or the rule by thieves in the garb of sheep in wolf’s clothing is a form of political corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population, often with pretense of honest service.
In the last union budget the Finance Minister has raised the salaries of the politicians by over 60% with innumerable perks, allowances and terminal benefits. The successive pay commissions upwardly revise the salaries of the central government employees and defence personnel on a regular basis and this is done with an eye on the vote banks.
The Raffale deal is another classic example of crony capitalism where the political class doles largesse to a sinking-in debt industrialist Anil Ambani controlled Reliance Infra by making the company a default partner with the French firm Dasssault having no experience in aviation and ignoring the state run behemoth Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. Most of the high profile projects are awarded to the Ambanis and Adanis and the Vedanta group of companies who flout all eco-sensitive norms for making a huge profit for themselves and share the spoils with their masters in authority.
The huge mammoth tower of unity dedicated to Sardar Vallabhai Patel is a monumental waste of tax payers’ money funded by public sector undertakings of oil companies where their balance sheets are bleeding due to rising oil prices. These PSUs could have utilized that money by cutting down the petrol and diesel costs for the common man who is overburdened with the continuous upward spiral of petrol prices.
The Auditor General of India should question the proprietary of such colossal waste of public money on frivolous projects which do not contribute to the welfare of society at large and especially where India ranks high on the poverty index in the comity of nations.
Whereas the trade war between the US and China is looming large, back home come 2019 elections, the war of rhetoric between the two major political parties i.e. the BJP and Congress is hotting up with the divided media supporting the rival parties with paid advertisements streaming across the social media platforms. The outcome of 2019 elections will be based on the upmanship of rhetoric.
