Money, given as donations to the Ayodhya Ram Temple, by millions of faithful devotees, was embezzled by a group of dastardly insiders, a heinous crime that deserves a life long imprisonment. It is the culmination of a failed judicial system that is over-indulgent towards crime and is woefully slow to deliver justice (there are 50 million pending cases). This encourages criminals to commit crimes, knowing that sentencing will take decades, and their earthly punishment, at the end, will be mild.Hindu philosophy propagated the theory of ‘karma’, under which the acts of a person in this life will affect his future life, as the soul resurrects. But the greed to live a better life now, committing crimes, has overtaken the fear of ‘karma’.

Unless this crime on a revered deity is immediately and severely punished, it will send an enormously wrong signal and will result in a complete breakdown of law and order, such as what remains of it. The Ayodhya Ram Temple case must be heard in a fast track trial, with no adjournments, no delays on any grounds, and deterrent punishment (a life sentence) meted out in an attempt to stanch the rot.

The Indian stock market is now abuzz with news about the forthcoming IPO of India’s largest stock exchange, NSE, in the coming week. In a scandal that surfaced in 2015, the Exchange was embroiled in the co-location scam, in which select brokers were given split second data access, which, combined with algorithmic trading, gave them huge monetary advantage. The then CEO, Ms Chitra Ramakrishna, claimed to have received, for 20 years, ‘instructions’ from a mysterious ‘Himalayan Yogi’, or spiritual guide, later revealed to be the COO, Anand Subramanian. She was arrested in early 2022. In September 2024 SEBI dropped market manipulation and fraud charges against both Ramakrishna and Subramanian. The brokerage firm, OPG, got its fine reduced from Rs 15.57 crores to Rs 5.35 crores.

There are several other examples of white collar crimes whose perpetrators get off with a rap on the knuckles even as victims suffer. Ponzi schemes like Sarada, Rose Valley, NSEL and others are examples. Because of investigative insouciance and judicial laxity, such scamsters have concluded that crime does pay.

Mr Modi, India can never become Viksit, or developed, until you introduce reforms to speed up investigative and judicial systems. The theft at the Ram Temple should serve as a wake up call of the urgent need to do so.

Even more so because of the shining example of some exemplar Indian companies. Like privately owned Serum Institute, based in Pune, which has supplied one or more vaccines to 65% of the children in the world today. Producing 1.5 million vaccines annually, it is the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines!

The largest manufacturer of tractors in the world, by numbers, is Mahindra Tractors. By value it is John Deere.

Dr Reddy’s Laboratories produces affordable, life saving, medicines offering treatment to those unable to afford the high cost of patented medication.

Reliance Industries has built and operates the world’s largest single refinery, which is also the most complex, which has a Nelson’s Complexity Rating of 21.1, the highest in the world. The higher the rating, the higher is it’s ability to refine the dirtiest of crude oil, available at a lower cost because there are few buyers able to refine it. As a commitment to the environment, it has planted 130,000 mango trees at the refinery complex.

Zoho Corporation, a privately held software company promoted by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas, makes cloud based business software. It’s products include workplace productivity and collaboration software, customer relationship management (CRM) software and business management tools. Headquartered in Chennai it has offices in 80 countries.

With Indian entrepreneurs and workers displaying such talent, it is disgusting to think about a whittling of their efforts and abilities because of weak contractual enforcement, corrupt bureaucracy and delayed justice. To repeat, these structural defects have to be addressed immediately, if India has to become a truly developed country.

Last week the BSE Sensex closed at 77569 points, for a weekly fall of 194 points.

The ceasefire in the Iran war has ended, after Trump lost patience with an absence of agreement by Iran to forgo its plans to develop nuclear weapons, or to give custody of it’s refined uranium. With resumed hostility, the price of Brent crude has risen again. There seems to be no early end to the conflict in sight.

Should it result into a closure of the Strait of Hormuz again, the growl of the bear would stifle the bellow of the bull.

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Comments may be sent to: jmulraj@asiaconverge.com