Feb 24, 2025
Why do 1.3 billion people or more
put up with this malaise?
Neelam Mathews
Many years ago, in Salzburg when
I was covering the tourism industry, at a traffic signal, a car stopped next to
us. A man sitting in the car, waved to the Austrian Tourism representative
accompanying me. She told me it was a minister she happened to know.
This image has never left me
making me realise what a nation of buckled down people we continue to be. This
time not to a foreign power but to self-acclaimed people who though elected by
us think it is their right to get their pound of flesh from their jobs....
rather positions. One of course understands a couple of senior ministers and
the head of state blocking roads when traveling but for the others, it’s a big
no-no.
We have started to take this
oppression and abuse for granted. The government even acknowledges this. Take a
1981 circular by the DGCA that till today wants VIPs to travel on a twin-engine
aircraft. We subjects can go to hell for all they care. FYI- Single engine
helicopters are SAFE!
Being in the aerospace arena, it was very disturbing at the AeroIndia 2025 Bengaluru to see “VIPs and their families and staff” be taken around the show in buggies paid by- us the taxpayers! What about the disabled, seniors and pregnant women? Don’t they have a right? Oh, they are not VIPs!
Being in the aerospace arena, it was very disturbing at the AeroIndia 2025 Bengaluru to see “VIPs and their families and staff” be taken around the show in buggies paid by- us the taxpayers! What about the disabled, seniors and pregnant women? Don’t they have a right? Oh, they are not VIPs!
A recent Air India flight that had a huge number of seats broken and probably IFE not functioning, was sincerely apologetic to a minister who complained. What free travel he was awarded, can only be speculated. Wonder if the carrier apologised to the other passengers who were in the same situation?
Readers might think this write-up is being petty but I think we are letting our selves be subjugated to a point of no-return almost! Remember what’s happening in the US?
On LinkedIn Merugu Sai Ramana, legal advisor officially, Britain has 84 VIPs, France 109, Japan 125, Germany142 US 252, Russia 312, China 435. India has a shocking 1,79,092 VIPs.
“These perks are funded by public money, raising questions about the sustainability and fairness of VIP culture…….but the willingness of elected representatives to relinquish their VIP status remains a critical consideration,” he said.
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