Rahul Gandhi's formal elevation

On the last day of the Congress party's 3-day Chintan Shivir(Deliberation Camp) in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, from January 18-20, 2013, attended by 400 Congressmen and women from all over India, the long-awaited announcement for the heir-apparent Rahul Gandhi to take over the command of the dynastic party was made. Although the Congress Working Committee put its formal stamp on the elevation of Rahul as the Vice-President-number two in the line-up after the mother Sonia Gandhi as President, it is expected that given her advancing age and health issues, he will call the shots. There was  nothing surprising and earth-shaking about the development as he was practically virtually number two even as general secretary-though one of many in the heirarchy. However, the wave of jubilation and bursting of fire-crackers displayed by sycophants, including tearful senior leaders, seemed to suggest as if half the battle of the next general election of 2014 has already been won with the advent of Rahul.

Rahul Gandhi's own acceptance address had a high emotional quotient, devoid of any cohesive, clear vision. Some media comments called it "hollow rhetoric". His startling disclosure that when his mother came to his room in Jaipur after his appointment, she cried, saying "power is a poison"; one must beware of it. It is reported that she also  bitterly cried when her husband Rajiv Gandhi was about to assume the office of Prime Minister after the assassination of his mother, Mrs Indira Gandhi, then PM. Mrs Sonia Gandhi clearly did not want him to drink the "poison of power". However, if she genuinely, sincerely believes in the poisonous nature of power, why is she in it for so long? Is she not regarded as India's most powerful woman who wants to perpetuate her hold on it for the dynasty as long as possible? Doesn't she want her son Rahul Gandhi to be the next Prime Minister? What about the perks, privileges and pre-eminent position that power ensures? Are there any indications that she uses the power primarily for empowering the deprived, the dispossessed, the impoverished?

                   

Identity of Delhi bus gangrape victim

When the world knows the identity of the gangrape victim who was brutalised in a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012 night, by six beastly men, including the driver and his brother, thanks to the victim's father himself revealing it in an interview to the London tabloid-the Sunday People, the Indian media is still unwilling to disclose it even though she died on December 29 in the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore  due to severe internal injuries. The relevant law in the Indian Criminal Procedure Code is quite clear that the identity of a rape victim cannot be revealed as long as the victim is alive; only the victim can do it. However, the law provides that it can be disclosed in the event of the rape victim's death by the next of kin. And, in this particular case, the father has given out the victim daughter's name:Jyoti Singh Pandey, in a recent interview in his UP village home, to Indian reporters of the British Sunday newspaper. He even showed them a family album, including her daughter's photographs. The newspaper has put the entire interview alongwith a few family pictures on its website with the exception of Jyoti on the specific request of the father.

But, amazingly and inexplicably, the Indian media continues to remain secretive, denying its readers the information the world, and those with access to internet, have already got. We want to perpetuate the brave 23-year-old woman's memory to inspire Indian women at large but, at the same time, we want to keep her nameless and a non-person, some people calling her "Nirbhaya" or "Damini". Why this charade? For how long? She is now dead. The stigma of rape haunts and traumatises the living. Shouldn't we honour the brave-heart-Jyoti-the eternal flame-by her name, as her father has done, to narrate her dreams and determination to lift her family from the pit of poverty through education of herself, her two younger brothers and her own physio-therapist job, even though the dreams had a sad end with her own premature, tragic death.