Was The Tamil Nadu Government Fair?

In the shoot out incident at Virginia Tech, US, the death toll included the 51 year old Indian professor of civil and environmental engineering, namely G.V.Loganathan, and the entire Tamil nadu was shocked to see that one of the Tamilian was killed in a brutal incident across the other side of the globe. Each and every one of Tamil nadu felt as though one of their family member has passed away. The Media's continued telecast of the grieving relatives of the professor increased the people's sympathy towards the family. Every one in Tamil nadu prayed that his soul must rest in peace and asked God to give the confidence to his wife and daughters to face the rest of their life without him.


When we move through the life of the deceased professor, it is seen that he hails from a small village in Erode district of Tamil nadu and had worked hard and earned a place in IIT, one of the premier institutes of India. Giving due credit to him, we ought to state that for the greater heights he achieved, many people need to be praised, including his teachers during school days, who transformed the young mind from rural areas into an intellectual one fit enough to study in IIT. We also need to remember the many IIT professors and we the people (Remember, the Indian Government gives huge subsidy to IIT, (i.e.) our tax are being utilized by those studying in IIT) are also responsible for him achieving greater heights.


But some how the deceased professor felt it would be better for him to teach US students rather than students from his own country. I have no problems with that. He has every right to decide where to work. The professor also felt for some strange reasons that his body be buried in US and not in India, which contributed mostly to his success. Again I have no problems, as every individual has a right to decide where he needs to be buried. Immediately after his death, the Tamil Nadu Government took steps to make sure that his relatives received passport immediately and visas without much delay. I appreciate that on the humanitarian grounds that a family which is already struggling with the fact that they have a lost a close one was not put into much more trouble.


But then the Government decided to sponsor the entire travel expenses of the family members for their travel to the funeral. It is where I disagree. Why has the Government decided to spend the tax money of the people (every one, even a beggar pays 50p as sales tax, when he buys a soap) to sponsor the relatives from attending the funeral of a person who must have been earning more than what most of people from Tamil nadu earn, who studied with the help of tax payers money but did not want to repay it and who did not want even his body to be buried here?

At least if he had died due to fault of the Government of India or Tamil nadu, we could understand Government helping them as a compensation. But he died due to the fault of the US government , the country he seems to have cherished so much that he wanted his body to be buried there. If any Government had to pay for the expenses, it should have been the US government, not the Tamil nadu government.

There are so many villagers, who help us to get food every day and serve us in what ever way possible, and at last die due to various factors like lack of proper treatment in Government Hospital, lack of proper transportation facilities in the villages to transport the ill, etc. But when those people die ( here the Tamil nadu Government is actually responsible for their fate) the Government does not give a single paise for their funeral. I know many families who literally beg so that they can do their last rites to their deceased family members. Worse still, in most of the Government Hospitals they don’t allow the people to take the corpse out of the hospital unless they pay the bribe to concerned people. Is it the equality our constitution teaches us?

So the moral of this incident: If you want the Government to help with your funeral, get all possible help from India as possible and then go to abroad and don’t serve your country. If you want the Government to neglect you and worse demand bribe to take your corpse to your home, you stay in the country, work hard and do what ever little you can do for the country.

JAI HIND

SUN - THE BEST FINANCE MINISTER?

Most of you would know the mechanism of rain formation. You would have studied about it in the science books of your primary schools. Any way let me again take you through the mechanism of rain formation.

Three fourth of the earth is filled with water. But most of the water is present in a salty state in ocean and hence not useful to the humans for consumption. Here is where the almighty Sun comes to our rescue. The sun absorbs the excess of water from the ocean through evaporation and then pours them down in the lands as rain. The rain helps every one in the world, whatever be their race, religion, language, customs, culture, etc.

Imagine what would happen if the sun does not does this activity. The excess of water in the ocean would be wasted and we the people would die due to lack of water. Imagine what would happen if Sun decides to absorb all the water in the ocean, rather than absorbing only the excess if water from the ocean? The ocean would dry up, marine animals would die, the eco system would be upset, and the world would cease to exist. But the Sun absorbs the excess of water from the ocean in the right proportion that the life in earth continues to survive.

Now compare the excess if water in the ocean to the excess of money in the hands of rich. The Government should act like a sun in that it should absorb the excess of money from the wealthy in the form of tax and distribute it to all sections of the society, without showing any partiality due to their religion, language, race, culture or customs. The government should also follow the other Golden rule of the sun, that if all the water of ocean gets absorbed, life in earth would be upset. In the same way the Government should tax the wealthy in such a way that only the excess money gets absorbed. If this rule of sun is followed by all the Governments, it would result in happiness and prosperity.

PS: The views expressed in this article are not my novel idea. These ideas are derived from the works of an unknown Tamil poet who lived around two thousand years ago. So it would be helpful for our Honorable Union Minister for Finance if he could replace some of the economics books in his shelf with the Sangam literature books.

Long Live Tamil!