One Rank One Pension

/home/jitendra/Desktop/OROP.pdf

/home/jitendra/Desktop/OROP.pdf

One Rank One Pension

Why Perpetuate a Folly?

Lt Col J K Kaushal ( Retd )

Emotional response to a problem is not the best way to arrive at the right solution. The wise never persist in a folly goes an old saying. Let us ask ourselves a few question. Is award of OROP for India’s ex-servicemen an act of honoring Indian soldiery? Are ex-servicemen not forgetting their Chetwood credo that safety, honor and well being of my country come first always and every time? Will such an award boost patriotism of men and women in uniform or expose their predecessors to a charge of betrayal of a poor nation? Should ex-servicemen emulate the illegal and immoral precedent of top echelons of judiciary, bureaucracy, legislature and the services in arrogating to themselves higher pension than what is permitted under their service joining contract? Is this not an opportunity for them to rise to motherland’s defense and call for an end to this mockery of The Constitution. If they do not do so, who will?

‘ The three doors to hell are named DESIRE, ANGER and GREED,

therefore eschew these three.’_ Srimadbhagwadgita.’

Is India not a living hell for its voiceless millions because nation’s leading lights did not heed Gita’s caution and fell prey to greed. Interestingly, the Gita also says :

‘ The conduct of the elite is emulated by ordinary people and

the example set by them is followed by public.’_ Srimadbhagwadgita

Doesn’t it explain why India of our day is quagmire of greed, deceit and chicanery? If people who gave their youth in the defense of the country do not call a halt to this slide in moral values, who will? Let us ponder over the issue afresh keeping India’s future above our own.

OPOP will not be the end of a saga of a grateful nation bleeding itself to pacify its retired soldiers. No, it will not be the end but the beginning of India’s economic hara-kiri. Every single government employee will be in queu for such a largess. Where will it stop and who will stop it? Will not nation’s unproductive expenditure starve more important areas of money?

Let us, in stead, demand immediate promulgation of an ordnance to declare all pensionary benefits above the service joining contract as unlawful. The time has come to put the clock back literally and metaphorically. Let us come together and save India the ignominy of being branded a banana republic.

SPOTTING A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR

SPOTTING A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR

Although little has been written about pathological lying, one study found a prevalence of almost 1 in 1,000 repeat juvenile offenders. The average age of onset is 16 years when the level of intelligence is average or above average. Also, they have shown above level verbal skills as opposed to performance abilities. 30% of subjects had a chaotic home environment, where a parent or family member had a mental disturbance. Its occurrence was found by the study to be equal in women and men but some believe it occurs more in women. Forty percent of cases reported central nervous system abnormality such as epilepsy, abnormal EEG findings, head trauma, or CNS infection.

Characteristics

Defining characteristics of pathological lying include:

• The stories told are usually dazzling or fantastical, but never breach the limits of plausibility, which is key to the pathological liar’s tack. The tales are not a manifestation of delusion or some broader type of psychosis; upon confrontation, the teller can admit them to be untrue, even if unwillingly.
• The fabricative tendency is chronic; it is not provoked by the immediate situation or social pressure so much as it is an innate trait of the personality. There is some element of dyscontrol present.
• A definitely internal, not an external, motive for the behavior can be discerned clinically: e.g., long-lasting extortion or habitual spousal battery might cause a person to lie repeatedly, without the lying being a pathological symptom.
• The stories told tend toward presenting the liar favorably. The liar “decorates their own person” by telling stories that present them as the hero or the victim. For example, the person might be presented as being fantastically brave, as knowing or being related to many famous people, or as having great power, position, or wealth.

Pathological lying may also present as false memory syndrome, where the sufferer genuinely believes that fictitious (imagined) events have taken place. The sufferer may believe that he or she has accomplished superhuman feats or awe-inspiring acts of altruism and love — or has committed equally grandiose acts of diabolical evil, for which the sufferer must atone, or indeed has already atoned in her or his fantasies.

Scripting a success story

It is quite possible for a pathological liar to script a dazzling success story before being flound out or not being dound out at all. The grandiose schemes unraveled in India during the past one year have uncanny similarity to the conduct of a pathological liar at its natural best. One can not escape a sinister feeling that our government is collectively stricken by this malaise.

Sadly, there is absence of genuine governance and the ship of the nation is adrift rudderless on treacherous seas. Might it not be too late to put things back in order if people are not seized of this tragedy at the earliest. First we had been ushered into an era of bullet trains, thankfully, the dream soon ended. Then we saw Obama and Modi as first name calling bosom pals and the host outdoing the guest in his sartorial florish. And now a nation of homeless people is being fed on a dream of smart cities. Should not we be focussing on making existing cities liveable?

Is India to perish in a deluge of red herrings ?

Utmost honesty of purpose and truthfulness make a statesman out of a politician.  Honestly, Narendra Modi is just the opposite of this.  In stead, he tries to fool his way around by  incessant stream of red herrings..  How long can India survive this deluge of falsehood?

Prime Minister in a democracy is not merely head of the government, but, more importantly, the fountainhead of morality.  Sadly, when a pathological liar comes to occupy that office the future of the Republic can not but be bleak.

To begin with India was taken to the dream world of super bullet trains.  Nations with such  technology were quick to see the absurdity of this gimmick and asked India to do its own surveys and the rest.  How many Indians need bullet travel and have the means to afford a ride?  It was a pathological lie.

The came Obama with his bag of goodies for his new found friend Modi.  Can somebody tabulate the gifts he left behind?  It was a grotesque charade, a mockery of the poor people of India stage managed by an inferiority complex ridden PM.  After all red herrings are never meant to be concrete and plausible.

The visit of the Chinese President was billed as a game changer to make suspicious India and the bully, China, into bosom friends and future guardians of the world.  Did not we hear similar pious pledges from Islamabad the other day?  Wasn’t someone lying?

How naive and stupid ‘make in India’ slogan is?  Which country with the requisite technology would condemn its own technicians to joblessness and hunger in a fit of silly magnanimity to oblige Modi?  It was a case of bigger treachery than the characteristic red herring stroke.

Now we have ludicrous promise of smart cities.  Pray inform who is to build them and what kind of Indians will be privileged to inhabit those?  The single point agenda of delusional planning is to corner prime land and make Indian farmers land less and home less.  Even in not so smart Gurgaon a salaried, middle class Indian Indian can not aspire to own a hundred yards plot as it costs over one crore rupees.  Is not this a typical red herring?

Beggars also have dreams.  But, they are not deluded, like, sadly, our PM Modi is.  Is he really so completely out of touch with India’s reality.  Probably, he is so deeply indebted to his billionaire friends in Gujrat that he has lost not only patience but also his sense of proportion, in his hurry to hand over the keys of India’s meager treasury to them.