We got prosperity for few and the society began to crack, crumble and stink under the vices of modernisation. The human values that were once the hallmark of our Indian culture were pushed to the back-burner or forgotten in a short span of few years.

I WISH someone would tell me a good news these days. Though these are the best of the times and these are the worst of the times as Dickens might have said. To begin with the new year in Mirpur, the Sri Lankans showed us the slot of number two. Sania Mirza said she won’t play tennis after marriage.

We have been trying to forget the crude smile of Rathore as he was coming out but he did put us wise by telling us the source of his inspiration. It is a time when army officers, police officers and judges are caught entangled in, euphemistically speaking, anti-social activities. It is the time when in big cities, mothers count their kids before they go to bed.

Let us not talk about the BPO culture where you don’t know what your kids are up to. Our beloved Prime Minister, under the guardianship of another late Prime Minister, had brought progress for the nation. We got some new cars, new riches and new visionaries whose ambit never touched the shivering Indian, who is lost in the cruel street of life.

We got prosperity for few and the society began to crack, crumble and stink under the vices of modernisation. The human values that were once the hallmark of our Indian culture were pushed to the back-burner or forgotten in a short span of few years.

Today, the emerging India has been transformed into a heartless nation where only the money speaks. It is time when ‘3 Idiots’ succeed and ‘Kurban’ finds its way to the bottom of the pit. It is the time when Indians are getting Nobel Price. It is the time when we have organised the biggest Car-Show upon earth.

It is the time when both Ambanis are looking at each other and smiling. It is the time when Vijay Mallya has brought out a new year calendar which would make a feast for your eyes. It is the time when Tiger Wood has decided to banish his wild oats and seek the help of reformatory. It is the time when government has finally decided to do something to bring down the prices.

In this prevailing atmosphere of happiness and supposed sorrows some wise acre decided to give some lollipops of consolation as ‘Right of Information Concept’. Some people believed that they can jump the walled city of sanity. In an age when the judges of Supreme Court are averse to this very concept if it hurts them, one simpleton tried to flew over the cuckoo’s nest. He paid the price.

Right to Information (RTI) activist Satish Shetty, who exposed many land scams in Maharashtra, was killed by unidentified men while on a morning walk at Talegaon on the outskirts of this city on Wednesday (January 13).

“Around 7.15am, when Shetty was on his morning walk, some unidentified people assaulted him and injured him seriously. He was rushed to a private hospital, but succumbed later,” Pradeep Aphale, investigating officer of Talegaon Police Station, said.

According to a colleague, 38-year-old Shetty left home around 6.45 am for his usual morning walk when some people attacked him with swords near Bhandari Hospital. Shetty, a systematic whistleblower, was credited with throwing light on several major land scams in the picturesque Talegaon-Lonavala regions, now a favourite with realtors in the state.

He shot to fame after exposing certain corrupt land deals in and around the country’s first expressway, the Mumbai-Pune expressway, over a decade ago.

Now he is gone beyond questioning the right of information. Those who are ardent religious in faith could console themselves with a thought that he might have failed in fulfilling his mission in his life but dear Lord would provide him every information in the heaven. The whistle blower’s whistle has been silenced for ever. Someone has to pay the price of prosperity. Isn’t insanity to talk about one murder when thousnads and thousands of humans are being killed by Haiti’s earthquake ?

Naim Naqvi

Did his graduation in Science discipline from AMU in 1972-73. He was Secretary of University Ali Society in 1970 and M.M. Hall Literary Society in early 70 's and member of Tayyabji Literary Society. Did his Diploma in Bakery Administration from HTT College Oxford Street London in 1987. Worked with National Herald - Delhi, Blitz - Bombay as Trainee Journalist and in Production Department with 'Naya Sansar Pictures' of Khwaja Ahmed Abbas at Bombay in early 70's. Traveled for study and training purposes to Germany, U.K., Switzerland, France, Dubai, Oman, AbuDhabi, Bahrain and Philepines.

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