A leading Hindi newspaper carries a picture today of the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh clicking selfies with young girls and the caption below it reads that he was running form one place to another to get these selfies. Recently the Prime Minister of India urged the citizens of India to go for Selfies with Daughters and post it on the micro blogging site Twitter and on Facebook so as to promote girl child. After the Prime Minister went on air in his "Mann Ki Baat" with the idea of selfies, the government agencies took on the task that it becomes the number one trend on Twitter and claimed that world over this initiative has been appreciated. While this was going on, a young Bollywood actress and TV personality was hounded on the same SM platform for questioning the motive of the Prime Minister and she had to then write an open letter where she talked about issues beyond "selfies".
Another program launched with much fanfare has been the Digital India Program where the government wants people to be connected and avail the services of Internet so as to ease their lives. If one visits the website of this program, they will find that the main objective is to integrate various government departments and common man. Mr Prime Minister wants to harness the possibilities of digital technology for the well being of the nation and its citizens.
The reason that I talk about these two programs is because both are somewhere inter linked and somehow wants to give an impression to the common man that all is well. These initiatives sound positive, touch your emotional chords and you find 2 percent of the population jumping on to the various social media platforms and overwhelming us with their selfies and comments. If you belong to the other 5 percent which finds all this hogwash and want the government to really work on the ground and get its priorities right, then you are in for some good abusing and calling names (if you happen to be a twitterati or a Facebookian).
I as a women and a tax paying citizen of the country has some serious reservations regarding the portrayal of these important issues. Selfie was something which started as a trend for the glamorous and the famous to share some candid moments with their fans & followers. Mr Prime Minister went a step ahead and shared some of his selfies with leaders all over the world. Our Chief Minister followed suit and now instead of putting his pictures with girl child on posters he clicks selfies with them. If the government thinks that by putting the hashtag of Selfies with Daughter they will be able to uplift the situation of girls in the country, they are living in a fools paradise. And if the Chief Minister of a state does so it seems as of there is an identity crisis which there should not be. A state which has the highest number of rapes and crimes recorded for the past so many years, a selfie seems more like a slap. Digital India is a good initiative though this very party criticized Mr Rajiv Gandhi and his team when they came up with the idea of computerizing all the departments. The question is how they go about Digitizing India and what is the time limit set. If our Chief Minister had rather given desktops to the girls and initiated a free website where they can access books in Hindi, the girls would be empowered.
We do not want the government to start changing the society and how it thinks especially for girls, because that is something which we ourselves have to do, but Yes we want the government to govern. It has to be strict with the perpetrators of hate and violence towards girls. It has to be equally stringent with its set of Ministers who come out with atrocious statements against women. It has to take electricity and roads to the people so that people can access computers and internet.
The basic is that the government has to get it's priorities right. If our Chief Minister is unaware of ground realities or what we the citizens want, I on behalf of my fellow citizens can give him some pointers.
1. Co-ordiantion between the various departments so that the same work is not handled by many.
2. Clean drinking water.
3. Uninterrupted power supply without voltage fluctuations.
4. Roads without pitfalls.
5. Promises that can be fulfilled in a given time frame.
And the list continues.
PS: If we can hear you Mr Chief Minister for once being honest about the VYAPAM Scam, it will be good for everybody's health.
Another program launched with much fanfare has been the Digital India Program where the government wants people to be connected and avail the services of Internet so as to ease their lives. If one visits the website of this program, they will find that the main objective is to integrate various government departments and common man. Mr Prime Minister wants to harness the possibilities of digital technology for the well being of the nation and its citizens.
The reason that I talk about these two programs is because both are somewhere inter linked and somehow wants to give an impression to the common man that all is well. These initiatives sound positive, touch your emotional chords and you find 2 percent of the population jumping on to the various social media platforms and overwhelming us with their selfies and comments. If you belong to the other 5 percent which finds all this hogwash and want the government to really work on the ground and get its priorities right, then you are in for some good abusing and calling names (if you happen to be a twitterati or a Facebookian).
I as a women and a tax paying citizen of the country has some serious reservations regarding the portrayal of these important issues. Selfie was something which started as a trend for the glamorous and the famous to share some candid moments with their fans & followers. Mr Prime Minister went a step ahead and shared some of his selfies with leaders all over the world. Our Chief Minister followed suit and now instead of putting his pictures with girl child on posters he clicks selfies with them. If the government thinks that by putting the hashtag of Selfies with Daughter they will be able to uplift the situation of girls in the country, they are living in a fools paradise. And if the Chief Minister of a state does so it seems as of there is an identity crisis which there should not be. A state which has the highest number of rapes and crimes recorded for the past so many years, a selfie seems more like a slap. Digital India is a good initiative though this very party criticized Mr Rajiv Gandhi and his team when they came up with the idea of computerizing all the departments. The question is how they go about Digitizing India and what is the time limit set. If our Chief Minister had rather given desktops to the girls and initiated a free website where they can access books in Hindi, the girls would be empowered.
We do not want the government to start changing the society and how it thinks especially for girls, because that is something which we ourselves have to do, but Yes we want the government to govern. It has to be strict with the perpetrators of hate and violence towards girls. It has to be equally stringent with its set of Ministers who come out with atrocious statements against women. It has to take electricity and roads to the people so that people can access computers and internet.
The basic is that the government has to get it's priorities right. If our Chief Minister is unaware of ground realities or what we the citizens want, I on behalf of my fellow citizens can give him some pointers.
1. Co-ordiantion between the various departments so that the same work is not handled by many.
2. Clean drinking water.
3. Uninterrupted power supply without voltage fluctuations.
4. Roads without pitfalls.
5. Promises that can be fulfilled in a given time frame.
And the list continues.
PS: If we can hear you Mr Chief Minister for once being honest about the VYAPAM Scam, it will be good for everybody's health.
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