Life and much more has come to a standstill after the nationwide strike call by transporters, not surprisingly after the fuel price hike. Now, it may seem an easy to understand problem from the analyst's point of view, but as is the case everyone is not an analyst in our country, and the parties involved are entangled in worst of the worse ways. The common man isn't bothered about what happens globally, all he knows is that he is being made to pay more for the fuel he buys, be it for cooking and commuting. Fair enough we the Indians are one of the largest consumers of fossil fuels, but then we are not the the ones who's waste it for nothing.
Pick-up trucks are not the most common family vehicles in our nation, its the 125cc bike or the 800cc car. We don't buy fuel guzzlers because they look good, we buy commuter vehicles because they are just about enough to suffice our needs. On a slightly larger scale we as a country don't send out aircraft carriers anywhere in the world and then begin pounding another nation on the pretext of finding some of the most wanted people in the world, although ours's is the country worst affected by terrorism, and importantly enough our people form an integral part of the efforts in the world, wherever they might be made to reduce mankind's dependence on irreplaceable sources of energy.
But then, if we have done this much I guess we could do better. The government doesn't want the common man - aam admi - to suffer too much during this low point in world history, and is looking into ways to ensure that. Well here's a suggestion from an aam admi to people supposedly working for the betterment of the aam admi.
First and foremost - try being an aam admi yourself - in a nation of billion half of more of whom starve in some way or the other, we can't have people's representatives, chosen by the people themselves, living in the luxuries that they do. Most of them don't deserve to, and others because they need to set examples. Cutting foreign visits alone won't do Mr. Prime Minister... think beyond. For a start, change the way you people travel - send the ambassador to the museum... as much as it has been a symbol of India's grandeur and splendor, its no elephant that feeds on grass.Alternatives? No, you people don't need those sporty sedans or SUVs, what's wrong with the 800cc vehicles? They travel as good, are well engineered and are much more fuel efficient.
Secondly, cut down on your cavalcades, 3 or 4 cars at the most for a top notch minister is enough. And anyways, if they had to shoot you down, they would do it one way or the other, having 10 extra cars, I am afraid will not really help.
There could be some other revolutionary measures taken, like not being allowed to use the official vehicle for party activities, and no reimbursement for trips to unsuccessful and unfruitful meetings both within the country and abroad, which we are seeing a lot these days.
But for a start the first two measures would do a lot in helping our fragile oil affected economy as well as restoring some measure of people's confidence in today's hardly people friendly governments.
Is anybody listening?