India Uncut
This blog has moved to its own domain. Please visit IndiaUncut.com for the all-new India
Uncut and bookmark it. The new site has much more content and some new sections, and you can read about them here and here. You can subscribe to full RSS feeds of all the sections from here.
This blogspot site will no longer be updated, except in case of emergencies, if the main site suffers a prolonged outage. Thanks - Amit.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
No free lunch, says Rahul Gandhi
The Telegraph reports:
Well, actually, I don't mind that also but I do mind that only.
... Rahul [Gandhi] visited two villages in Ranga Reddy district to see for himself how the micro-finance scheme of an NGO — Swayam Krushi Samstha — was working. He spent over two hours in Bandasomaram, about 45 km from here, where he surprised all by opting to sit on the floor with the villagers and sharing their drinking water.Why am I blogging this? Well, I'd wondered in an earlier post what kind of thinker he was, and this gives me reason to be optimistic. He is almost certainly a future leader of the country, if only because of the family he's from. And reportage like this interests me far more than some of the details earlier in the article, when we are told that later in the day Gandhi had "a meal of mutton biryani with a side dish of chicken."
“He also had tea and biscuits with us,” said Padma, an activist.
The first-hand experience of how small loans can change the lives of the poor and the disadvantaged had strengthened his opposition to subsidies and freebies, Rahul said. “If they are able-bodied and healthy, there should be no free lunch at all. It is bad to give anything as dole.”
Well, actually, I don't mind that also but I do mind that only.
