His compositions regaled the ordinary man in the street, provided the intellectual with food for thought and promoted Punjabiat as none other had done. We learn all this while watching the documentary. It is sad that no attempt has been made to preserve his heritage. His house at Amritsar has been sold out in phases and a marriage palace has come up at the site! Contrast this with how Shakespeare’s house and other related memorabilia have been preserved in England. A society that ignores its litterateurs flounders in ignorance.
Khabarsaar (Zee Punjabi) took a look at the galloping inflation, especially food prices, last fortnight. The panellists examined a gamut of causes behind the phenomenon – fiscal, supply management and politico-administrative. Several pertinent points were raised. However, what needed to be stressed upon was that supply side economic management has several limitations. In short term, at least, it is not possible to increase supply of goods to the levels significant enough to impact price behaviour.
Similarly, various fiscal instruments for controlling inflation cannot be always effective in influencing price movement. Nonetheless, it is the general quality of governance that ultimately affects the price behaviour of various commodities, especially food articles. This is where the role of various political parties, especially the government, comes under the scanner. As Jatinder Pannu pointed out in DD Punjabi’s Khaas Khabar Ikk Nazar, when wheat meant poorer sections of society ends up in the stocks of bread manufacturing companies, there is something wrong with the way various government agencies have been functioning.
Continuing his sardonic comment on attitudinal dysfunction in governance, Pannu contrasted the behaviour of law-enforcing agencies towards criminals belonging to the social upper crust with those who are mere defaulters but belong to poor farming families. His comment was in the context of the Central Government’s refusal to reveal the names of those who have stashed away black money in Swiss banks.
Pannu pointed out that a poor farmer who borrows a mere Rs. 15,000 and defaults on repayment is arrested and humiliated, whereas billionaires get away with brazenly fraudulent practices.
Something equally trenchant was said by advocate Anupam Gupta on the sets of Day and Night News channel’s debate on Chandigarh police’s functioning. Contrasting the attitude of police officials towards Khushpreet’s kidnapping and subsequent murder with their alacrity in resolving the Tanishq robbery, Gupta asserted that the UT police has become VIP conscious and ignores those living in the southern sectors as well as the villagers dwelling in Burail and other areas on Chandigarh’s fringes.
However, another participant, the UT Police’s SP (Operations) Ghumman defended his colleagues valiantly even in the face of evidence cited to the contrary. Dogra, former DGP of Punjab, too, was scathing in his criticism of the manner in which the police had handled the case. But the question that needs to be asked is when would our police forces be freed from the clutches of politicians and made truly professional?
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