Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Are we a develop(ing / ed) or an underdeveloped one?

I had no plan to write anything this morning and the topic was not even in mind until I sat down for the breakfast with my Idli-Wada and The Newspaper in the canteen.

There were two photographs which drew my attention in the front page- of a newly born baby girl with her mother ( from West Bengal) and of the newly inaugurated Bandra-Worli Sea Link which has been dedicated to the nation yesterday.

News1:
The baby girl’s name is Asha and her mother gave birth to her in the veranda of an elementary school in Lalgarh, WestBegal Bengal- the Maoist bastion which the State is trying to bring under its control.

News2:
All the state and central political bigwigs are praising each other for the completion of the prestigious sea link- of course this is an engineering marvel which every Indian can be proud of - which may the land mark of Mumbai now onwards replacing the Gateway of India.

While the bridge was being inaugurated by cutting the red ribbon in western Mumbai, Asha was waiting there in the veranda of the school waiting for a midwife to come hand cut her umbilical cord.
Man, I ‘m not able to explain what I felt exactly after reading that two news snippets.

Where are we? Are we completely on the right track? Or what are we lacking as a State?
Why the State has to use armed force against its own people?
What can be done to see babies like Asha are getting a better welcome scene to this World?

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