On Friday 11 April 2003 10:38 am, Suraj Kumar wrote:
All of this means the politicians get to launder lesser money and that means smaller scope for their corruption to flourish. Corruption and the race for power needs to be eliminated without which the benefits of free software would only be a threat to them (the politicians) and hence they would seek quicker ways to eliminate us. More quicker and more desperate than proprietary software giants.
This is my fear, and I suppose this is exactly what is happening behind the scenes. Our country is fast losing true politics and politicians. And we have to deal now with the new generation spies, who work for the betterment of proprietary corporates at the expense of our countrymen.
Looking from the 'other side', this fact also appears to be 'good signals' for multinational corporations, in that they can 'buy anyone' and have 'the views of those corporates' endorsed. Our best of bureaucrats would fall at the small temptation of a sponsored 'foreign trip' and would get all the background work done for the Minister to sign official agreement, 'on behalf of Government' with the proprietary establishments. A look at the list of 'top civil servants' who have gone on 'foreign trips' in the past three years and a re-look at their official views on 'software policy' would throw up interesting revelations. And if any journalist is ready for an 'investigation', the presence of 'Swiss agents' posing as 'donors', would complete the story.
Crying 'shame' can no longer put these 'corrupt officials' into shame, a reason, why I maintain that in the fight between a 'corrupt stand' and an 'ethical stand', inevitably, it would be corrupt stand that would win. (Imagine a two-faced theatre, where one side plays bharathanatyam and the other side features cat-walk with revealing dress, and try to place where the audience would eventually land up.)
CK Raju