Skip to main content

Politics need not be a bad word



It’s rather rarely one comes across an article that highlights the goodness of politicians. Today I stumbled upon one such article in Malayalam written by one Abdul Rasheed. He mentions how G. Sudhakaran got a bank to write off a loan in order to save an old, impoverished woman from losing her home. Just a few phone calls and some instructions: that’s all what it took for the minister to bring a new life to that woman.

The writer also appreciates the recent visit made by Kerala’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala to the flood affected regions of the state. They shared the same helicopter putting aside their political rivalry.
 
Image courtesy Yoyo daily
The article goes on to say that Pinarayi’s government has already extended financial help to 234899 people in the last two years of its governance. A sum of ₹ 423 crore reached those people from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. Most of that money came from the state-run lotteries though there are also some contributions from generous and compassionate people.

The Pinarayi government has expedited the process of extending financial support to the needy by making the application process online. There’s no need now for the person to go to Thiruvananthapuram and run from pillar to post and bribe the bureaucrats. The application can be submitted online and if it is approved the money is transferred to the account of the person within 100 hours. When Pinarayi took charge as Chief Minister, there were 30,000 applications awaiting action. An exceptionally quick action was taken by the Left government in this regard.

Rasheed contrasts this with what’s happening in many other states. Middlemen steal much of the money from the relief funds in many states, he says.

The Chief Minister’s Relief Fund is functioning with enviable transparency in Kerala and the money is reaching the right people at the right time. Due to the present flood crisis faced by the state, a lot of people have made generous contributions to the Fund. ₹ 1.75 crore was donated from 26 July to 9 Aug. Those who wish to contribute can remit the amount to:
Account Number: 67319948232
Bank: SBI City Branch, Thiruvananthapuram
IFSC: SBIN0070028


Comments

  1. Sachin BaikarAugust 12, 2018 at 9:05 PM

    Interesting read 👍 In crisis situations all have to keep aside their differences and work together.Sad to hear about the floods in Kerala. But as you mentioned it is good to know the money is reaching the right people.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 12, 2018 at 10:09 PM

      No wonder the Public Affairs Index ranked Kerala no.1 for the third consecutive time. India deserves a left turn.

      Delete
  2. Jyotirmoy SarkarAugust 13, 2018 at 8:20 AM

    It is great to know that relief funds are reaching to the people whenever necessary, hopefully the flood affected people will get over the loses soon. Middlemen making their own profit is very common and there lies the problem.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 13, 2018 at 8:33 AM

      Sangh parivar asked people not to donate to the chief minister's fund. But a temple in Kerala donated its entire collection. That's Kerala.

      http://www.doolnews.com/how-keralas-hindu-community-reacted-to-sangh-parivar-hate-speech-kerala-temple-donates-entire-treasury-collections-to-disaster-relief-fund.html

      Delete
  3. Rajeev MoothedathAugust 13, 2018 at 11:37 AM

    It is wonderful to read good stories about politics and politicians for a change...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more

The Vegetarian

Book Review Title: The Vegetarian Author: Han Kang Translator: Deborah Smith [from Korean] Publisher: Granta, London, 2018 Pages: 183 Insanity can provide infinite opportunities to a novelist. The protagonist of Nobel laureate Han Kang’s Booker-winner novel, The Vegetarian , thinks of herself as a tree. One can argue with ample logic and conviction that trees are far better than humans. “Trees are like brothers and sisters,” Yeong-hye, the protagonist, says. She identifies herself with the trees and turns vegetarian one day. Worse, she gives up all food eventually. Of course, she ends up in a mental hospital. The Vegetarian tells Yeong-hye’s tragic story on the surface. Below that surface, it raises too many questions that leave us pondering deeply. What does it mean to be human? Must humanity always entail violence? Is madness a form of truth, a more profound truth than sanity’s wisdom? In the disturbing world of this novel, trees represent peace, stillness, and nonviol...
7 comments
Read more

The RSS does not exist

An organisation that has 80,000 branches in India does not exist legally in any document. This is the cover story of The Caravan this month. By the way, The Caravan is one of the very few publications that still continues to exist in spite of being overtly critical of Narendra Modi and his Sangh Parivar. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not registered as an organisation under any of the usual Indian registration laws such as the Societies Registration Act or as a trust or company. It functions as an unregistered voluntary organisation, though it is arguably the largest public organisation in the country. This situation makes the organisation absolutely unaccountable to anyone, argues The Caravan . The RSS is not legally required to file annual returns to the Tax department or disclose its financial details publicly though it deals with thousands of crores of rupees every year especially after Modi became the Prime Minister of the country. The membership of the organisat...
12 comments
Read more

No Problems Only Opportunities

You’ve probably heard this joke. A young man walked into his office one morning and found a beautiful young lady sitting in his chair. He called the MD and said, “Sir, I have a problem.” The MD replied, “Don’t you know our company’s motto, young man? No Problems, Only Opportunities .” When Suchita of The Blogchatter sent me a mail with the topic of this week’s blog hop –  - the first thing that came to my mind was the above joke. I know many people – too many, in fact – who went through terrible problems. My own life was a series of problems in none of which was there the consolation of any beautiful woman. One essential lesson I learnt from life is that life is a series of problems. You solve one and then arises the next one. Now I have reached an age when problems are no more problems: they are life itself. If you ask me what was the biggest problem I ever dealt with, it was my last years in Shillong. I was a lecturer in a college drawing a fat salary stipulated by the U...
13 comments
Read more