By Ramanuj Ghosh:
Ask any child what he or she aspires to become, and the prompt response would be among doctors, engineers, lawyers, managers, pilot, teacher or journalist. None of them want to be politicians because politics is a bad world and politicians are players in this world. We tried to look back at 2011 and 4 politicians who have improved or managed to stay out of the bad ass image in 2011 are as follows:
Ajay Maken
Ajay Maken is the sports minister of India who has taken the mantle of sports after MS Gill and has taken some bold decisions, trying his best to enhance and improve the sports scenario in our country by implementing a national sports policy.
His advocacy of a National Sports Policy to ensure there is no involvement of politicians as heads of a sports bodies in order to remove incompetent people from offices of profit is an admirable endeavour. His guts to take on the powerful Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) by serving them ultimatums and debating in the parliament to make the BCCI accountable to the country’s people by being under the Sports Ministry of India is a brave gesture. Ajay Maken has devised a policy to generate and approve adventure sports in the state of Jammu and Kashmir to enhance the image of the state in a positive way and also enhance economic development through employment of locals in these sports.
Pawan Chamling
The Chief Minister of Sikkim has been in power through the Sikkim Democratic Government and did exemplary service during the earthquake which took more than 100 lives in Sikkim (The earthquake made the state suffer an economic loss of 1 lakh crore).
During 2011’s earthquake the chief minister Pawan Chamling never laid himself in slumber but went to each and every corner of Sikkim to analyze the tragedy that had befallen on the common people of the state. He left no stone unturned to reach out to the people, through economic packages sufficing their need and even decentralizing his officials to the remote mountainous regions by mobilizing the army and the disaster management teams to save as many lives as possible.
Narendra Modi
Even though a controversial character in the political arena, his achievements as a political leader and as a mass leader by triggering more developmental projects has managed to get  him a lot of political and societal gains, while developing Gujarat.
Narendra Modi’s Vibrant Gujrat of 2011, which is a conglomerate of corporate honchos from all over the world, and his projection of  Gujarat as the best state for business in India has worked out very well for him, setting an image of an investment friendly state. Through this program, 1 lakh Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) were signed in Gujarat.
A.K Antony
In the wave of politicians hailing from the south getting indicted in corruption cases, it’s A.K Antony, India’s Defence Minister, who is standing tall as a pillar of honesty, whose performances in 2011 cannot be ignored.
A.K Antony facilitated the fast acceptance of the mother of all defence deals in the form of choosing two best air crafts from all the air crafts present for the Multi Medium Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA), for the Indian armed forces to our Air Force with immense operational capabilities. It was him who made the fast convening of a meeting of Cabinet Committee of Security to make this deal a reality.
A.K Antony held his ground and made India’s stand clear while border talks with China took place. He very well managed the issue of Dalai Lama attending the Buddhist conference in India, where the Defence Ministry, under his instruction took a tough stand. The border talks collapsed but the World Buddhist Conference in India duly happened at its scheduled time – a moment of pride and self righteousness for the minister.
At a time when the ‘corruption’ ‘lokpal’ are the buzz-word of the day, politics has turned into a gimmick and politicians seem to be a part of a comedy show, these politicians have not made to the headlines for the wrong reasons. Do you agree?