T N Ninan wrote in Business Standard on May 25 2013:
"A Country for scandal?/ What do IPL and Ranbaxy tell us?"
"Pillorying the government of the day for pervasive corruption is the easy thing to do, whereas it might just be an escapist option. It helps those of us who are neither in politics nor in the government to pretend that we are not tainted, and therefore have the right to point fingers at politicians, who we assume are not. The truth, as recent events have brought home forcefully, is that corruption has permeated fields that have nothing to do with politics and government...
...And what does one make of Ranbaxy - once a poster boy for the emerging India, but which now stands exposed for falsifying its research results, and then selling what must presumably be described as adulterated drugs to unsuspecting consumers, at home and abroad? The US authorities have slapped a penalty of half a billion dollars (about Rs 2,800 crore), but where have India's own drug authorities been all this while? What about the criminal liability of all those who were in the company and part of the fraud? What is the responsibility of the company's directors of the time, including many well-known worthies - who, according to the whistle-blower, chose to ignore the red flag that he waved?..."
IPL bares the soullessness of some of the giants of Indian cricket who cannot stop raving about it. It is nauseating to observe, day in day out, India’s former greats competing with each other to outsmart the cricketing dictionary."
Kanti Bajpai wrote on May 25 2013 in The Times of India:
"...Our national game is corruption — nothing gives us more pleasure than for our media to uncover the next great scam, bigger and bolder than the last great scam, and there is no doubt a league table of corruption in our heads that excites us. The only right we truly care about is to do whatever we please and devil take anyone who objects. And our consuming passion is yammering endlessly, mostly to criticise everyone else.."
Look at me, an ordinary man, in the picture below. On the left. And any corruption scandal these days for me is just a scratchy throat.
But No Ranbaxy Generic Please!
Artist: Richrd Decker, The New Yorker, November 27 1937
p.s.
After I published this post, this is what I read on FB: "
"A Country for scandal?/ What do IPL and Ranbaxy tell us?"
"Pillorying the government of the day for pervasive corruption is the easy thing to do, whereas it might just be an escapist option. It helps those of us who are neither in politics nor in the government to pretend that we are not tainted, and therefore have the right to point fingers at politicians, who we assume are not. The truth, as recent events have brought home forcefully, is that corruption has permeated fields that have nothing to do with politics and government...
...And what does one make of Ranbaxy - once a poster boy for the emerging India, but which now stands exposed for falsifying its research results, and then selling what must presumably be described as adulterated drugs to unsuspecting consumers, at home and abroad? The US authorities have slapped a penalty of half a billion dollars (about Rs 2,800 crore), but where have India's own drug authorities been all this while? What about the criminal liability of all those who were in the company and part of the fraud? What is the responsibility of the company's directors of the time, including many well-known worthies - who, according to the whistle-blower, chose to ignore the red flag that he waved?..."
IPL bares the soullessness of some of the giants of Indian cricket who cannot stop raving about it. It is nauseating to observe, day in day out, India’s former greats competing with each other to outsmart the cricketing dictionary."
Kanti Bajpai wrote on May 25 2013 in The Times of India:
"...Our national game is corruption — nothing gives us more pleasure than for our media to uncover the next great scam, bigger and bolder than the last great scam, and there is no doubt a league table of corruption in our heads that excites us. The only right we truly care about is to do whatever we please and devil take anyone who objects. And our consuming passion is yammering endlessly, mostly to criticise everyone else.."
Look at me, an ordinary man, in the picture below. On the left. And any corruption scandal these days for me is just a scratchy throat.
Artist: Richrd Decker, The New Yorker, November 27 1937
p.s.
After I published this post, this is what I read on FB: "
