rediff.com: The Republic Special: Share your dreams and vision for India

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'This millennium should be ours'

Name:rengarajan madanagopalan
Email:renga6@aol.com
Message:Before we go into failings and ailmenets, let us see what we have achieved. The biggest achievement is that India continues to be a vibrant democracy after 50 years and its people have stepped in to correct extreme political attrocities (like emergency rule)at different times. As to what is ailing the country: 1. The political system has set glowing example that it is okay to break laws. This cancerous attitude of politicians has crept into the society as well. We believe since it is not possible to change the corrupt poliical and administrative system, it is okay for us to break teh laws and be corrupt. 2. Lack of leaders with vision. We do not demand a vision statement from any leader - from Panchayat president to prime minister. 3. Awareness and corrective action on population explosion. As to what can be done: a. Let us not hope that some messiah will be born to correct everything over night. Let us not sit an dblame politicians and expect them to change. They will not change themselves rather will have to be changed. b. Let us start obeying - as individuals - laws and rules. We can strat with traffic. Nowhere in the advanced world will you see someone jumping a red light- even at midnight. Let us not go on the wrong lane to get ahead of queue. Let us pay taxes in time. Let us not bribe, if we can avoid them. If more and more people obey the simple laws, the first level corruption will slowly come to an end. c. Let us go and vote in every election. Vote for teh least corrupt, young and someone who says who will come in to see you once a week. d. Keep the house and street clean and never throw any dirt on the road. e. Work extra hard to make the company that you are working more prosperous. Economic growth is the only prescription to reducing poverty. f. Give a part of what you ear

Name:Vijay S Yepuri
Email:yepuri_saradhi@hotmail.com
Message:The Lost Glory of a Great India must be regained. I pray god to give us the strength to regain that Glory.

Name:Shivananda
Email:shivananda@bigfoot.com
Message:In my opinion, the first act should be towards the control of population and educate the mass. This would be the first step towards progress. Improving the infrastructure and encouraging the tourism industry will generate a lot of revenue for the nation. There are lots of untapped tourist spots that can be improved. Marketing Indian tradition is also a good idea.

Name:Sam
Email:
Message:Let us first accept the reality, which most of us don't do. Our acheivements in the last 50 years are less compared to our miseries. The problems facing the country today are Population, Poverty, Illeteracy, Religious Fundmentalism, Poor Infrastructure(road, phone and sanitation) and corruption. For most of these, the successive governments have to be held responsible. When there are 8 crore people below poverty line in communist China, largest democracy India has got 40 crores, who go to bed without dinner. Sham Democracy has created hell a lot of problems than doing much benefits. Illeterate people electing the same dirty and corrupted politicians every two or three years and getting nothing in return is not democracy. We are host to world's maximum poor, HIV positive, Polio. 58% of the country's population does not have potable water or sanitaiton. 50% are still uneducated. There more than 4 crores child labour when kids of theirs same age are getting used to Internet, Mcdonalds and convents. Still we are the largest democracy with strong institutions. These institutions have done nothing to a common man rather than playing second fiddle to whoever is in power. No single politician has gone to prison in these 50 years on corruption charges because of lack of evidence. Do you expect them to do malpractices with enough proof? But any Ram or Raheem will be in prison if he does not pay back a sum of 1000rs taken as loan to the bank. Most of the IAS officers and govt officials are also corrupted. So where will anyone go and complain of corruption? Only God can save us. Next comes our religious funadamentalism. We are proud to tell that we are a secular country. But incidents that have happened in the past and in the present are not reflecting that. 3000 Sikhs were killed in 1984. Thousand Muslims were killed

Name:Satish Hosanagara
Email:hrskumar@att.net
Message:This millennium should be ours. We have to transform ourselves into a highly performing legacy. Our problem is too much disintegration and we not being responsible for what we are doing; population only adds to it. We might consider ourselves a brave country but we lack courage and confidence. What bothers me most is highly corruptive social set up. As someone was mentioning, "Indians are highly successful but India is a failure". Great brains of our country work elsewhere but not in our mother land. It is not a set of bad politicians, it is not a set of bad administrators responsible for what we have been today, it is all us collectively responsible for our state. We lack rational thinking, we try to bind everything in emotional strings.

India will be successful only if there is a uniform civil code, corruption-free society and an employment system based on talents not on castes/communities. Irrespective one's position everybody should be treated equally. We should adopt modern technology in all possible areas for improvisation and effectively use our greatest asset, the man power. I certainly do not believe in unemployment. As long as one aspires to get a 'government' job, we will certainly see begging graduates. We compromise a lot and we resist change. We should come out of the cocoons thinking. More and more entrepreneurship should be entertained,we should build infrastructure to support such high visionaries.

There is a lot of discussion about the constitution review these days, I have no comments on that. Why should we help the traitors? Again, in an emotional tone, can I say, kill the traitors at the sight? No compromises, no talks, we will be just as arrogant as possible, when it comes to build one country, one force and one India. Let us not support the attitude of living next to a stinkin

Name:Dwarakanath
Email:luvbuddy007@hotmail.com
Message:It should aspire to eradicate poverty..I mean to say is "Every Indian should get food, shelter, and clothing". This could be done if the politicians have that willingness to serve the poor. As it looks like most of the politicians are more interested in their bank balances Indian would never propser...I request to all the people to oppose dirty rouges and make our country better!!! JaiHind Dwarka

Name:Thomas Mathew
Email:tmathew@airmail.net
Message:India is one of the most corrupt country in the world. The people are extremely tolerant to the whims of politicians that have plundered this country for last 50 years. In the global setting, India stands on the bottom of the list on all fronts. The rate of growth on all sectors including technology have been extremely slow. On the other hand countries like china have a huge trade surplus with the US. Why does India miss the boat each time? Because most Indians are introverts and care less of the society nor nation. Why is the current position then suprising if this is true? Only its people can bring about change. I strongly feel that this change will not happen unless ordinary people like you and I make politicians accountable and step out of our comform zone to bring about change. There are talker and few doers. That is the problem.

Name:Venkatesh
Email:venky_nk@hehe.com
Message:First of all, a law should be amended in such a way that,all politicians should have basic degree as their education.otherwise,they should not be allowed to contest for the election at all. Secondly, politicians should not be allowed to poke their nose w.r.t Law and order. if a rowdy has been arrested,then a politican will poke his nose and will allow that guy out.such things should be stopped. -- California,USA

Name:Khushhal Mahajan
Email:kmahajan@micron.com
Message:if we go in past and see we have quite a few achievements. Notably self sufficiency in Agriculture products, Space program , a multi ethnic society, secularism. But doing this but we really missed was the social structure and needs of society. May be when we got independence the world was already in to Industrial Revolution and we wanted to catch with them so we always preffered Scientific Advancement to Social. Now on 50th aniversary of independence we should sit down and look back. we would find that two sectors which we really ignored and has greatest impact on society are Education and Justice System. Lets us prioritise one of those today and work to achieve it in next 10 years. Since if justice system is good and efficient corrupt people will be automatically will be eliminated and will allow everybody to come forward and leap for dreams.. or if education is good it will insure no body is ignorant.

Name:Indhian
Email:indhian47@hotmail.com
Message:The sacrifices of the generation before us are the reason we are now Doctors and Engineers and NRIs. Only in Few places on this earth will you see families living in Poverty willing to sacrifice for their Son/Daughter's education so that he/she can one day live a comforatble life. It is our duty to pass on the good things to our future generation. It is not enough that you and your family become prosperous. Our Nation is the Foundation of our lives and of the future generations. If it becomes prosperous so will our future generations.

Name:Karthik Venkataramani
Email:karthikvenkataramani@usa.net
Message:One is tempted to rejoice at the apparent progress India has made in the past 50 years, but I would rather let logic prevail. India's case has been one of oppurtunities lost than utilized. Just review the following: Even after 50 years as a Republic, we still have a third of our population below poverty line (read starving and shelterless). Corruption is rampant and institutionalized. Our executive, bureaucracy and judiciary are accountable to none. To make matters worse, criminals have ascended to high positions. There is really no decision-making power, even at the highest echelons of government. Even the PM grapples with retaining power and has to depend on all and sundry to pass even the smallest bill. And ever increasing reservation in academics and jobs has ensured that merit is relegated to backseat. And the result is that we have increasing number of youth who have no will to stand up on their own and rather seek clutches. Reservation is the phoniest of all the policies we ever conceived. Is it not time that we abrogated the present constitution and created one that places emphasis on merit, accountability and timely delivery of justice? Is it not time that we truly emerged as a developing nation? And create jobs and eliminate poverty? Is it not time that we start rewarding enterprise and merit? Is it not time that we created a uniform civil code and treat all Indians as equals? Is it not time that we said good bye to reservation and let merit thrive? Is it not time that we made atleast the next 50 years of the Republic truly constructive? We can, if we have the resolve. After all do we not have an able leader in Vajpayee who can do this? And we need to do all this in a hurry. It is rather sad that we are still a languishing nation while count

Name:Raghuraman Kalyanaraman
Email:raghu_kalyanaraman@yahoo.com
Message:Hi, The main reasons, why we as Indians couldnt do what even less gifted people across the world have achieved My top ten list. 10. Corruption. Corruption may be cited as the problem that dogged India, but in my list it is low, since corruption is the Symptom , not the cause. The cause is numbers 1 through 7. Corruption as a disease, ate our country, but to stop that , we need to fix the causes first. 9. Lack of creativity, and forcefulness in solving our problems. We try to solve our problems through western science and methodologies, and we never customised our system to work for us. Inspite of having the best medicinal system in the world called Ayurveda, we let the initiative drop, through lack of faith in ourselves, a lack of proactiveness and lost a brilliant past. We havent yet lost all yet, and it may be time for us. 8. Colonialism. The whole colonialism experience left us in a shambles, and we were left with a country with no system, and no money, by the British. Of course, the reason why we got colonialised in the first place was the first 7 reasons. So, we had to start with nothing, and our accomplishments in the last 50 years have been dramatic, but not unfortunately didnt get us through to the winning post. 7. A very accomodating culture. We dont punish the bad, push the unproductive people to the background and reward the successful, and give the baton to the strongest, bravest people we have. We let everybody be. Thats the reason, why we dont complain about bad roads, dirty water, erratic power supply. We are happy with status quo, and not willing to stand up to nonsense and beat it back with a stick. We need be ruthless with non-performers. Push them out with strength, and resolve. And let the deserving win for themselves, for others, and also they should help the non-performing, and the vulnera

Name:gopalkrishna.m
Email:gops_276@yahoo.com
Message:It has been 50 long years of Independent and Republic India. But unfortunatly India has not even moved 50 steps ahead. Yes i do agree that there has been development in some fields, But that doesn't make our country self relient.so changes are inevitable. First of all the policies and functioning of all the government functionaries should be made transparent and clear. Even though father of our nation had made clear that backbone of our country is our rural people, there has been no significant change in their life in the past 50 years. Yes, ther has been some policies and schemes by all the governments for the development of rural india, but none of the policies were transparent and none of them have reached the rural population. For any system to be effective there should be some feedback. That is what is lacking here. Hence there should be some feedback and a body with strict rules and power to look after how effective are the implementations of the policies. we are unfortunate to have leaders like laloo yadav, to avoid such people we will have to make atleast some changes in our constitution which is a welcome decision by the presenr government. if atleast some changes are made i think we hope for a bright india.

Name:Praveen
Email:kvpchandra@hotmail.com
Message:I would like to see undivided India and the people would not sell the country for money.

Name:Suresh K Anand
Email:sanand@writemail.com
Message:India is just beginning to take off on the economic front. Hopefully this will help in overcoming our other most serious problems such as corruption, education and over population. In my view the most important reform needed is to go for the Presidential form of Government. Once elected, the President (or PM) should remain secure in his position for 5 years unless impeached by two third of the Parliament. He should nominate his cabinet as he pleases but subject to Lower House approval (simple majority should suffice for this). All election costs should be borne by the State, with no private funding being allowed. (This need not apply to parliamentary elections where private funding to a certain limit may be permitted). I believe this simple step will go a long way in eradicating the corruption which is at the root of our remaining backward when the world is rapidly moving ahead. Other important steps needed are curtailment of bureaucracy and their powers, education especially of women (Education upto High School should be compulsury and free for all, Schools must be allowed to decide the curricullam in consultation with the parents; Teachers must be very well paid and carefully selected, however at least one hour class per week at all levels must be devoted to inculcating moral values; people with slightest of criminal record must not be allowed to stand for election at any level until their name is totally cleared, one third of seats at all levels must be reserved for women, Minimum qualification for MPs and MLAs must be discussed and agreed upon (I would be happy with minimum High School pass), IT education should also be compulsory at all levels upto high school. After high school, only the brightest should be admitted to colleges and universities, appropriate vocational training for others, complete transparency in Government; Minimum Government, No subsidies for any industry

Name:Pavan Katti
Email:pkatti@hotmail.com
Message:India has come a long way in 50 years. But that's not enough. There are a lot of mistakes that have been made which unfortunately have become a part of the 'system' which definitely needs to be undone like : 1. Accountability of govt. officials. 2. Making the system transparent at all levels, ie. removal of the official secrecy act. 3. Two party system. 4. Privatisation of all sectors. 5. Removal of reservation system for education and work based on caste. 6. Having literate and civilised ministers. 7. STRONGLY ADOPT POPULATION CONTROL. (evening if necessary by leveing addional taxes). 8. Fastesen judiciary work. 9. Getting the ministers and bereaucrats under law. 10. Unlinking politics & politicians from education, police and other such institutions. 11. Improving the defence budgets. 12. Uniform civil courts. 13. Better international policies. 14. Being agressive about national defence against terrorism and terrorist sponcering states. 15. EDUCATION FOR ALL. 16. Better tele communication system. 17. Better Rail and Road network. 18. Implementing the LAW. 19. Pollution control. 20. ABOVE ALL CORRUPTION and nexus between politicians and and all criminals - be it criminal police or criminal criminals!

Name:ARISH K SAHANI
Email:asahani@ft.newyorklife.com
Message:INDIA'S ACHIEVEMENT LIES IN ITS PEOPLE PARTICULARLY HINDU PEOPLE. WHO HAVE BEEN SO TOLLERANT TO OUR CONGRESS GOVT OF LAST 45 YRS..WHO INSPICE OF CREATING CURRUTION RAJ AND PERMIT RAJ AND BUREACRACY HAS SURVIVED AS THEY SURVIVED 1000 YRS OF SALEVRY AND KEPT THE HINDUISM ALIVE. TIME TO UNDERSTAND AND LET HINU INTELLECTUAL TAKE CONTROL OF GIVT AND TAKE THE RULE AWAY FORM THE LEFTIST AND SALEVRY MINDED POLITIANS LIKE CONGRESS AND OTHERS.

Name:arati keshri
Email:akeshri@yahoo.com
Message:we are realy proud to celebrate nour 50th republic anniversery.but we yet to achieve a lot of goals without which we can't say that we are truely independent. our majot goals are education ,medicalfacilities, driking water,neat and clear politics,law and order situatiuon and many more.i hope that at our 75th anniversery these problems won't prevent us to celebrate our republic day with full of fun. happy republic day

Name:Naresh Giridhar
Email:inteqsys@satyam.net.in
Message:The MPs who get elected, except for a few of them, identify their term to better their lifestyle and a means to amass money rather than focus their energy to do service to people. Only those who are prepared to dedicate themselves to such sincere task should be elected. To prevent any ignoble attitude, following changes should be made. Only those with Indian origin should be allowed to contest. THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD ANY CRIMINAL PROCCEDINGS HELD AGAINST THEM. They should never be given more than two terms whether the parliament got dissolved in between or not. The Member of Parliament who get elected should be paid only minimal salary to maintain himself. He should be given accomadation in a single room apartment in Delhi or preferably in a guest house maintained for MPs exclusively. They should travel by taxis or public mode of transport and they should not be given cars with drivers. Their transport expenses should be reimbursed if they are able to justify it. NO VIP SECURITY. No free Railway passes for dependents or accompanying persons. If people are unfit to travel alone they are unfit to get elected too. Except for the periods when the Parliament is in session they should be held acountable for all the expenses arising out of their trips they make to Delhi from their home town and the poor taxpayer should not be burdened for every trivial trip these MPs make to Delhi under some pretext or the other. The Telephone Dept should collect a sum of at least one lakh as a caution deposit from the member or the party beforehand and see that it is promptly returned at the end of the member's term if he has decently settled his telephone bills periodically. Else the outstandings should be deducted. If at any t

Name:Nalin Gupta
Email:nalin_gupta@mailcity.com
Message:If we are serious, then as a nation we should get involve to build our nation. If have many problems because of so many languages and religions. Lets have compulsory education in Hindi and English through out the country. Also keep regional languages as part of our education but I dont see any point in teaching all subjects in regional language. If we look few developed countries, who have achieved so much in last 20 or so years like KOREA, they too are slowly moving from korean to english. Simple reason is to avoid all sort of problems which comes up due to different languages. In India many cities are supposed to be developed, like delhi, mumbai etc. But they are nothing more than mess. If we try to improve these places than we will lead ourselves more in to problems and issues. I will suggest that let these places continue the way they are going on. Select 3-4 places like in Kerala, Chandigarh, Hyderabad or whatever where things could be done from start. Plan city in such a way that we design it with next 50 or 100 years in mind. And never on 20 years old census report. Have minimum level of standard set for quality of life in these cities. Lets have world best airport, MRT, express roadways with full network of flyovers etc. We should accept that these things can not be done at delhi or bombay or calcutta. When singapore can do more business with so less space, then why can not we. Let govt gives responsibilities to private companies than trying doing itself.

Name:Vasudevan S
Email:vasya10@hotmail.com
Message:Spectacular Achievements: Corruption; Poverty; Population Overgrowth; Pollution; Cheap Labor; Insufficient human rights; Cheapness of human life; Dirty politics; Ambiguous constitution & laws; Neglection of history, tourism and natural beauty; Illiteracy; Goondaism; Lousy government jobs; Belated Condom distribution; Congress (I). Desired Aspirations: Scientific thinking and growth. What should it change? Make each district its own state. Give autonomy to several states and let them fight between each other. Policies to Adopt: The US policy of suing anyone for anything. Where to go from here? Wait a few million years - Ma Earth will be destroyed anyway.

Name:R. Venkataramanaiah
Email:vramanaiah@yahoo.com
Message:Only the educated (Highly placed civil officers like IPS and IAS) alone can compete in Elections. They must be paid with high salaries to attract the best. Obviously this should be their only income. In the process, they should be made accountable for their deeds. Transperancy in their work is very important. Media has to play a very big role in this. Media should be unbiased, fair and should put the facts before the nation. I am sure this will bring a remarkable change in the country

Name:vidit Kohli
Email:vidit_k@chequemail.com
Message:we can improve our CBI by making Mrs Kiran Bedi its Director. she can only restore the trust of indian public upon CBI by her honesty

Name:Miss C.Dhru
Email:n/a
Message:I would only like to comment that India & Pakistan cannot and should not spend money on nuclear weapons and military instead we have a long way to go ahead.Both the countries are still in process of development. It's just western policies that do not want India to be a superpower like China in the eastern hemisphere.Till today we have never understood the divide & rule policy of the western powers.On one side US says that it supports India and on other side it sells weapons to Saudi-Arabia which are indirectly given to Pakistan itself.Is this called justice?On paper some demands are made and legally US is betrying us.We should learn a lesson now that both India & Pakistan are poor and instead of fighting over Kashmir both the countries should plan strategies to develop tourism in Kahsmir just like US and Canada are aerning from Niagara falls. The problem over Kashmir can only be solved if Mr Vajpayee and Gen.Parvez Mussaraf meet and discuss things,just passing statements is only increasing terrorist activities in the country.Pakistan should also realize that if it wants an equal stand in the world they should make friendly ties with India.India is capable of becoming the next super power after China if we change our policies.We should avoid interfearence form the western countries and take our own decisions.Why does us,France and UK want the whole world to sign CTBT pacts?Its just because they want to have monoploy to sell weapons to the developing countries!! It is high time now that we change our policies and come to some conclusion over Kashmir issue.

Name:abhik roy chaudhury
Email:abhroy@rocketmail.com
Message:India means unity in diversity, no one in this world has achieved this, not even USA,in US black is black , white is white. India has her own unique nature which she derived from ancient vedanta,Himalayas and ganges which are tolerance, peace and plurality, no country in world has achieved it and west silently learning these lessons from ancient Indian culture and implementing very fast in their own society. We have failed to realise that. We have become copy cat and losing very fast our wealth of inherited knowledge . If India dies the whole world would die this is more than certain. Rescent archeological data are disclosing the fact that aryans never rooted from Asia Minor but from India. Indians are real aryans

Name:binduhari
Email:celia_sa@rediff.com
Message:THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD TAKE IMMEDIATE STEPS TO PREVENT THE POPULATION WHICH IS MULTIPLYING AT ALARMING PROPORTIONS, IF IT IS TO ATTAIN A SUPERPOWER STATUS WITH OTHER FIVE MAJORS.

Name:sricharan
Email:sricharan@rdsindia.com
Message:We achieved : Security for criminals . We should acheive : Security for the nation from Terrorism. My Dream : Every child having the opportunity and right to get educated .

Name:CNT
Email:cntil@yahoo.com
Message:India has achieved a progress in lot of fileds. 50 year in a National history is relatively smaller period. We could have done better, much much better, only because our myopic and selfish politicians. This starts right from independance no one to be spared. Whatever, great India has done is taken by the large amount of population. which has grown because of VOTE-BANK nurtured by politicians. We have ineffeciencies in governement again because of Vote Bank for minaorities, this and that. Therefore fist we need accountability of those who rule and govern. Capital punishement for the corruption is a solution . The corruption can be any, for vote or for money !