| |MAY 20189Consultants ReviewIn the backdrop of a democracy where politicians and business houses are joined to the hip to often further their self causes.A person dies every 3 minutes in a road accident, con-taminated water kills one person every 4 hours, a girl is reported raped every 30 min somewhere in the coun-try and many more which aren't reported. More than 25 percent of the population is illiterate and more than 22 percent still lives below poverty levels. If unemployment at 7 percent is a burning issue, then underemployment is an even bigger one. We Have More Issues UnderneathThey say we are a land of great diversity and a thriving cultural hub. The former has morphed into vote bank at-trition between a hard posturing for the majority and an appeasement towards all forms of the minority. Some mi-norities still don't find a voice like an ignored left-hander or a despised atheist.The cultural space has been taken over by movies as a frame by frame copy of Hollywood, though one needs to appreciate the non-judgmental way of presenting things off late. The sports culture is represented by cricket played between few countries leaving the Olympic cup-board mostly devoid of medals and a deep anguish dur-ing every football world cup thinking if only we could have played.The Key to Change Begins with AwarenessTo truly conquer these very sad issues, firstly we need to be aware of what a dignified living can look like and we need to get to a collective pride as a society. That's the basic starting point of a dignified community living.Why Don't We Have the Pride?We have lost our way as we don't feel part of a collec-tive society. We don't because we aren't told about our history. We aren't told because we might be offended of some of our past; those offences had political ramifica-tions during most part of the post-independence era only to recently get over-corrected by magnifying mythologi-cal stories to make it feel more as fiction. As a result, we grow up as Indians knowing nothing of our dark past and nor our glorious history.What is Our History in Brief?Our history is that of a land that hosted the most ancient and yet at that time very modern civilizations of this planet, a land where zero was invented, a land which con-tributed most in areas of astrophysics many centuries back, a land that commanded a quarter share of world trade just a few centuries back. And of course, a land that gave the world spiritualism, the method and mean-ing of life. There are just so many more, equally worthy of mention.However, we have our share of uncomfortable past. We are a land that witnessed the largest holocaust ever in humankind with 100 million killed over few cen-turies. A land that witnessed just a few decades back, the largest human displacement ever on the back of a geographic partition. There are Great Realities Too at PresentOur current reality, in many ways, is commendable and the country didn't have it this good for a long time. The infrastructures are the best it ever has been, the highways, the waterways, the railways, the underground trains, the airports, the parks, the open spaces the stadi-ums are proof of this.It is one of the fastest growing economies on the plan-et for a long time, taking out millions of poverty steadily in that process.It still churns out a tremendous human capital, part of which propelled India into the technology and busi-ness process services leadership for the last two de-cades. Its doctors and engineers are well established across the world.The Key to Our FutureWe need to be made aware, we need to feel the pride, we need to extend a warm gesture to our fellow citizens in public spaces, we need to value the good things in public space, we need to demand dignity in public space, we need to believe we deserve the best, we need to say cha-otic public place isn't right. These basic fundamentals will then drive the nation to demand education, to de-mand hygiene, to demand clean water, to demand clean air, to demand quality control on our food, to demand traffic enforcement, to demand safe public infrastruc-ture, to demand 24/7 security. A land where basic mannerism like standing in a queue or driving in a lane is viewed as inefficient and weak and its citizen's second nature is to deface any infrastructure that looks beautiful
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