Who's doing the thinking?

After the 26/11 incident, everyone has been accusing the intelligence agencies of not sharing information or not acting on available intelligence.

I must say they are not the only ones. Any and all agencies seem to be suffering the same problem.

The B.M.C. and the MMRDA to begin with..

I'm assuming that the people who work in these agencies are people who live in mumbai and if one lives in the city, it is not very difficult to take a birds-eye view of what action will impact what and what will be the consequences especially where development work of roads, etc. is concerned.

There are only 3 main roads running within the city. One which runs along the western line, one central and the other along the harbour train route. The roads along the central line and the harbour line run pretty close to each other and are almost parallel so it would not be very difficult to imagine that if work has to be carried out on one road, the other must be kept open so that traffic can move along smoothly and people are not inconvenienced. While this may be in-your-face obvious to any ordinary person, such simple concepts appear to be beyond the grasp of the people running the above-mentioned agencies.

They insist on carrying out work on both roads at the same time leading to traffic congestion throughout the day and making travel a bigger nightmare for people than it already is. To add to it, while carrying out work on the flyover near the zoo, a water pipeline burst yesterday causing an even more problematic situation. The road was flooded like it was the middle of monsoon.

Who's doing the thinking there? Where is the alternative strategy plan in case of such an occurence. The strategy plan put into effect yesterday was to get the cars to move single-file on a 4-lane road.

And our political parties are not far behind. They have either not understood the mood of the citizenry or choose to ignore it.

The most ridiculous statement came recently when the SP introduced Sanjay Dutt as their Lok Sabha candidate from... hold your breath... Lucknow!!

a) The man has been convicted and sentenced for 6 years and whether he has committed the crime or not, it has been proven in a court of law and he has been found guilty. Even after all the hue and cry by citizenry demanding that political parties put up worthy candidates this time around so that finally we can all bring the focus back to nation development and security, they do this... and of course, since he's a film star and 'such a nice guy' (as the media describes him) not one citizen has raised his/her voice in protest. I hope that at least the Election Commission uses better judgement and disqualifies him.
b) The bigger absurdity is to get him to contest from Lucknow. Has the man even seen Lucknow?! Is he going to move to Lucknow and settle down there to ensure that he does the work that he is required to do as an MP? I think not. So why should he be put up as a candidate there?
c) Does he have any background in politics, governance or development work? So what qualifies him to be a candidate for elections which choose representatives to run the country?

And the latest news item in today's paper is that the SP has said that if Sanjay Dutt is disqualified, they will get his wife to contest the election. What is happening here?!!

These are questions that are applicable for all candidates. The poor guy has become an example in this write-up but even he should think about these questions before either he or his wife accept.

I don't know who is doing the thinking but someone had better start..