Editorial, 'CORRUPTION, SPORTS AND EDUCATION', in LAW ANIMATED WORLD, 31 August 2012 issue, Vol. 8, Part 2, No. 16

CORRUPTION, SPORTS AND EDUCATION

are hot news again, perhaps they will be ever so in our Indian conditions, with what the Coal-gate Scam stalking and stalling the Parliament now, with our country failing to get even a single gold medal in the London Olympics and the fee reimbursement imbroglio for higher, more specifically engineering, education in our State, rocking the governmental and judicial boats. To take up the last first, the very scheme was ill advised from inception, introduced out of populist vote bank considerations; it is doubtful whether it would really promote the cause of better education for a better society. Linked to the all pervasive corruption, the beneficiaries will in general be from relatively better-off sections only with the general public that cannot afford even a decent primary education burdened with the bill. Strangely when public or state sector education is being cherished and fostered in avowedly capitalist West, ‘we the people’ of India opting for a socialist democratic republic have settled for a greedy capitalist private educational system and criminally neglected the public education with even the judiciary singing the tunes of a LPG economy of the globalization phase of a degenerate capitalist system which is being loathed now by the agitated 99% all over the awakened world. Likewise, when common people can’t have even moderate school buildings with necessary playgrounds – even the ‘model’ Raj Bhavan Govt High School in Hyderabad has not a playground since decades – and requisite physical education training, how we can dream of Olympic medals. The ‘investment’ by State in education is quite meager compared to that in the developed or even many developing countries. The beneficiaries of populist schemes rarely contribute to the real development of the nation with themselves drawn into the vortex of corrupt systems of the day while the more meritorious and deserving candidates are left in the lurch. Even Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign has also, sadly, taken a U-turn with virtual desertion from the battle-field, to plunge into the cesspool of the rampant corrupt politics in the name of starting a political party, contesting elections, etc. Here we only express these laments in which, of course, our readers can, hopefully, find some suggestions too by ‘necessary implication’.  §§§