Toward Becoming A Super Power

      At this time, the population of India has crossed 114 crores. The politics of votes has forced all political parties to remain quiet on this issue. According to Nobel prize winner Amritya Sen: a nation can progress only if it’s priority is health and education.

The finance ministry is perched on a hot seat. A vast sum of money is required to run the problems ridden country. Our country’s entire budget is equal to approximately 60 billion dollars. One billion dollar is equal to 5000 crore rupees. The words “billion and dollar” are appropriate because it’s easy to confront/compare with other nations.

Any country’s strength can be measured in two ways: economic power and military power. Out of one 60 billion dollar budget, 19 billion dollar shall be spent this year to maintain military strength. The rest of the amount shall be used to run, expand and develop the government. machinery. It is approximately 550 dollars per Indian. Defense and government paypackets consume a lion’s share of the entire budget. Government may be of any political party, every budget keeps this share intact. Punjab’s budget is nearly 75 million dollar i.e. 70 dollars (3500 Rs.) per person for the whole year. Today there is no hesitation to admit that at the time of spending the allocated budget, the government machinery adopts corrupt means for personal benefit. There is no satisfactory improvement in the condition of the poor and common people; yes at the time of election they are offered some financial, material and intoxicating largesse’s!

It is being propagated for the past several years that India is on its way to becoming a super power. Will our ordinary people become rich or will we become great from military angle? In this connection the ‘good’ thing is that we are no longer puppet in the hands of non-aligned nations and are now forcefully involved in the world chess game of politics and defense ! Our neighbouring nation is being used in inter-nation chess moves for the last 60 years because it is a puppet of some other nation.

Today there is only one super power in the world. It spends 700 billions dollars (increasing every year) every year on “defence” army and ammunition. Many top nations of the world together spend much less than this amount. This innocent super power is very scared of far-off, small countries and the terrorists hiding there. They (The terrorists) do not seem to tolerate the prosperity of this great nation. It is interesting that these terrorists are those who have no means of their own to attack. However the super power has alleged that these terrorists hijacked aircrafts and rammed them in the World Trade Center on 11 Sept, 2001 and fully destroyed it: all evidence goes against this concocted fairy tale. Actually these towers have been demolished/destroyed under a premeditated well researched plan. They were too sturdy to fall prey to the impact of ramming aircrafts, that were actually drones without pilots and without passangers This issue is a very grave one in contemporary era and will be discussed endlessly. It is more important today to realize that in the name of 9/11 the super power has begun to target innocent countries of Central Asia, South Asia and South America. The super power has a super expenditure budget. To attack and gain control over a small nation like Iraq and establish ‘democracy’ overy there, 675 billion dollars were spent and another 225 billion dollars on Afganistan. The expenditure continues no doubt a country that can afford this stupendous expenditure is rightly called a super power. The expense of 3 billion dollars per week must be adverseby affecting the economy of this super power. The amount of 3 billion dollars is much more than the entire annual budget of our Punjab state. Today with the help of highly powerful weapons of  destruction, ways and means are being found to “civilize” countries like Iraq, Pakistan and Afganistan and reach out to their people.

The civilization of Iraq is as old as that of India. Man started cultivation in Iraq around Euphratus and in India around Saraswati (modern Ghaggar river). Centuries ago the water of Saraswati changed course to be a part of Sutlej. The water of Euphratus that was a lifeline of Iraqi people is today badly polluted with blood, dead bodies and poisons of war. A few decades ago Iraq was dear friend of Bush-Obama nation. The destruction of Iraqi nation at a particular time was predetermined in a chess move so it was done. The people of Iraq were devastated; around 15 lakh civilians were killed. But the countries of the rest of the world were too scared to offer any help or sympathy to Iraq. Our non-aligned and free country became impervious to the whole episode as if nothing had happened.

In America’s CIA list of rich nations, India ranks 136, Pakistan 138, Nepal 175 and Zimbabwe 200. while America is at no. 8, Australia 17, Russia 57, Cuba 84 and china is 106. it is obvious that even Russia and China are weak nations.

We should not be under any illusion of becoming a super power. Our nation is most corrupt and wasteful nation in social and political areas. Harassed by problems of food, cloth and shelter for today’s 114 crore gods and goddesses, our nation is running on the road to progress with tired feet. When population crosses 150 crores, solutions to all problems may be found. Everywhere we shall see ‘prosperity’ because we shall be super power as a begger nation in the rank and file of other beggar nations. May be we would have been controlled by many epidemics, droughts and starvations.

There is only one nagging question : will the world’s only super power allow us to emerge as a super power or will it effectively end any such aspiration by repeating the Iraqi process ?