STATE OF LOOT
This morning's newspaper mentioned that an H'ble bench of the Supreme Court of India is shocked that some army officers who had been accused of illegally selling non-service pattern weapons were let off with a pittance of a punishment ---- a reprimand or loss of seniority, as the case may be.
Had a minister or one of his family or his minions done the same, what would have been the punishment? even a reprimand? In military parlance, a 'reprimand' has pretty serious connotations. But what would civilians know of that?
Consider these facts:
our so-called H'ble Members of Parliaments, popularly called MPs serve just one term, whether complete or truncated by wholesale changing of allegiances, and get a full pension for the rest of their lives.
on the other hand, the young people who sign up for our Armed Forces slog a full prime life for little more than a pittance, with none of the fancy allowances the MPs get, over or under the table, and then live out the rest of their lives on a pension which is HALF of their pay.
And it is because they spend their nights guarding our borders, on land, at sea, in the air or in the ether, that all of us sleep peacefully in our beds. While sophisticated gangs of h'ble citizens continue to loot the country of precious resources quite without any accounting or anyone even batting an eyelid, leave alone SHOCK.
Had a minister or one of his family or his minions done the same, what would have been the punishment? even a reprimand? In military parlance, a 'reprimand' has pretty serious connotations. But what would civilians know of that?
Consider these facts:
our so-called H'ble Members of Parliaments, popularly called MPs serve just one term, whether complete or truncated by wholesale changing of allegiances, and get a full pension for the rest of their lives.
on the other hand, the young people who sign up for our Armed Forces slog a full prime life for little more than a pittance, with none of the fancy allowances the MPs get, over or under the table, and then live out the rest of their lives on a pension which is HALF of their pay.
And it is because they spend their nights guarding our borders, on land, at sea, in the air or in the ether, that all of us sleep peacefully in our beds. While sophisticated gangs of h'ble citizens continue to loot the country of precious resources quite without any accounting or anyone even batting an eyelid, leave alone SHOCK.
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