The Brave Pedestrian

Thousands of convicts are detained for months or even years AFTER COMPLETION OF THEIR SENTENCES due to non-payment of fines. What right to Life & Liberty are we talking about? The common man has no real right to life and liberty! That's right, there are thousands of inmates who remain in jail even after completion of their jail sentences because they are unable to pay the fine amount! At the end of 2013, there were 3000 such prisoners. Of these, 1375 prisoners, or 45.2% had been in jail less than six months after completion of their sentences. On the other extreme, 240 were still languishing in jail for more than five years after their jail sentences had ended. If non payment of fines of a few thousand rupees can keep you in jail for months or even years, what justice is there in our country? (Thank you TOI for in-depth coverage of this issue.)

Every schoolchild is taught that there are three organs of state, namely Legislature, Executive & Judiciary. What they don't teach is that there is a fourth organ -- a secret one: CORPORATES. Companies. Also known as Big Business. They are the ruling classes. We The People are the masses. Unknown to us, the corporate sector is closely involved with every legislature that is elected, and every government that is formed. It funds every political party in mostly secret ways, and  it extracts its price in ways that you and I will never realize. Companies get a huge advantage from being a "legal person", from having huge budgets for giving bribes to political parties, individual legislators and government officials. The sort of white-collar criminality that companies routinely get away with is so large and so widespread, that it is invisible. For instance, telecom, power, insurance and building construction companies have made cheating customers into such a rout...