बेबाक · Editorial
ನಾವು ಸೇರಲು ಸಾಲುಗಟ್ಟಿ ನಿಂತಿರುವ ರಾಜ್ಯ ಮತ್ತು ನಾಗರಿಕರು ಭೇಟಿಯಾಗುವ ರಾಜ್ಯ
ನಾಗರಿಕ ಸೇವೆಗಳಿಗೆ 13,343 ಜನರನ್ನು ಶಾರ್ಟ್ಲಿಸ್ಟ್ ಮಾಡಿದ ಅದೇ ಗಣರಾಜ್ಯವು ಮೂರು ತಿಂಗಳ ಕಾಲ ಕಸ್ಟಡಿ-ಚಿತ್ರಹಿಂಸೆಯ ಬಲಿಪಶುವಿನ ದೇಹವನ್ನು ಸ್ವೀಕರಿಸದಿರುವುದನ್ನು ಮತ್ತು ಇಪ್ಪತ್ತು ವರ್ಷಗಳ ನಂತರ ತೀರ್ಪಿನ ಸಮೀಪದಲ್ಲಿ ಕೊಲೆ ವಿಚಾರಣೆಯನ್ನು ಕಂಡಿದೆ.
ಎರಡು ರಾಜ್ಯಗಳು, ಒಂದು ಗಣರಾಜ್ಯ
ಕೇಂದ್ರ ಲೋಕಸೇವಾ ಆಯೋಗವು 13,343 ಅಭ್ಯರ್ಥಿಗಳನ್ನು ಈ ಹುದ್ದೆಗೆ ಆಯ್ಕೆ ಮಾಡಿದೆ.
The Encounter, Not the Summit
A government grades itself by its summits and its missions; the citizen grades it by the encounter. Not the conference hall in Goa but the regional transport office counter, where in Telangana the Sarathi portal’s repeated outages have stalled RTO services, and A. Sathi Reddy of the Auto Drivers’ Union Joint Action Committee said applicants were inconvenienced. Not the youth parliament’s set-piece debate but the police lock-up, the trial court, the queue for an ordinary public service. The state experiences itself as ambition; the citizen experiences it as friction, delay and, at the extreme, danger. An honest republic listens harder to the second account than the first, for that is where its promises are kept or broken.
The Strongest Case Each Way
State the optimist’s case at its strongest. Many still queue to enter public service; real competence exists, as Telangana’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy award for its renewables ecosystem attests. Ambition is not vanity — a nation that stops aspiring stops building. Now the harder case. The worth of a state is tested not on its best day but on its worst, and not by its strongest citizen but by its weakest: the undertrial, the daily-wager, the person in custody. By that test, a body unreceived for three months and a verdict that has taken two decades to approach are not footnotes to progress. They are the verdict on it. Both accounts are true; in a republic, the second governs the first.
The Evidence, Counted
Consider the figures the record supplies. The civil services drew 13,343 successful prelims candidates this year; last year the Commission shortlisted 14,161 candidates for the Civil Services Main Examination, 2025, against 1,087 notified vacancies — a queue of aspiration the state cannot itself absorb, and a sign of how narrow the door of secure opportunity remains. Set against that crush is the state the citizen meets. Before a Special CBI Court, a single murder trial has run twenty years and heard 128 witnesses; judgment was expected in May 2026, deferred, and scheduled for June 16. At the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, Akash Delison’s family had refused for three months to receive his body, and the court directed his father to receive it by 5 p.m. on June 15, 2026, failing which the State would be directed to dispose of it. In Telangana, the Sarathi portal’s outages stalled RTO services. These are not anecdotes; they are the documented texture of the state.
The Considered Verdict
The verdict is not despair, nor contempt for ambition. It is that aspiration has outrun delivery, and that the gap is now the central problem of governance. A republic that can stage a youth parliament on a developed India must also ensure that a custodial-torture case does not leave a family contesting a body for months, that a trial does not consume a generation, that a public portal stays online, and that a child’s classroom answers to the heat outside. These are not competing goals; the second set is what gives the first its meaning. Brilliance queuing at the entrance cannot offset cruelty or paralysis inside. The measure of a state is not the talent it attracts but the dignity it delivers to the citizen who never sat its examination.
A Feasible Way Forward
The way forward is unglamorous and entirely achievable. Custodial accountability can be made real through working cameras in every interrogation room, a mandatory independent inquiry into each custodial death, and time-bound action on the findings. Judicial delay can be attacked with fast-track benches and firm timelines for cases already past a decade, so a twenty-year trial becomes impossible rather than routine. Everyday governance can be held to published uptime standards, with portals like Sarathi treated as critical public infrastructure. Odisha’s stated approach — reopening schools on June 18 after summer vacation, while saying further decisions would be taken in students’ health interests if an unbearable heat wave prevails — is the right model: firm dates, humane exceptions. And the surest way to ease the crush at one narrow door is to build many. None of this needs a new slogan, only that the state measure itself as the citizen does.
ಒಂದು ಗಣರಾಜ್ಯವನ್ನು ಅದರ ಸೇವೆಗಾಗಿ ಸರತಿ ಸಾಲಿನಲ್ಲಿ ನಿಲ್ಲುವವರ ಪ್ರತಿಭೆಯಿಂದ ನಿರ್ಣಯಿಸಲಾಗುವುದಿಲ್ಲ, ಆದರೆ ಅದು ಈಗಾಗಲೇ ಹೊಂದಿರುವ ನಾಗರಿಕರಿಗೆ ತನ್ನ ಸ್ಪಷ್ಟವಾದ ಭರವಸೆಗಳನ್ನು ಉಳಿಸಬಹುದೇ ಎಂಬುದರ ಮೂಲಕ ನಿರ್ಣಯಿಸಲಾಗುತ್ತದೆ.
At stake is whether equal citizenship, free public complaint and universal democratic participation are matched by fair, timely and accountable encounters with the State.
Citizen Encounter Accountability Bill
Parliament should enact a model Citizen Encounter Accountability Bill requiring every public-facing authority to publish service timelines, outage logs and reasons for delay, including for portals such as Sarathi, with RTI-ready monthly disclosures. It should create an independent state-level grievance authority empowered to order time-bound fixes in service failures, custody-related complaints and post-evidence trial delays, while preserving High Court supervision and federal rule-making powers.
ನಿಮ್ಮ ಸಾಂವಿಧಾನಿಕ ಹಕ್ಕುಗಳು
ಈ ಕಥೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಸಂವಿಧಾನವು ಏನು ಭರವಸೆ ನೀಡುತ್ತದೆ?Superintendence, direction and control of elections vests in an independent Election Commission of India.
ConstitutionalEvery citizen aged 18 or above has the right to vote, regardless of wealth, status, gender or education.
ConstitutionalEvery citizen has the right to freedom of speech and expression — including a free press and the right to know — subject only to the reasonable restrictions in Article 19(2).
Fundamental RightThe State shall not deny any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws. Like must be treated alike; the law cannot be arbitrary.
Fundamental RightWhat this editorial rests on
Drawn from our live multi-newsroom feed — read the reporting at source.
ಚಳವಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಪಾಲ್ಗೊಳ್ಳಿ.
ಒಂದು ಸಮಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದು ನಿರ್ಭೀತರ ಸಂಪಾದಕೀಯ-ನಿಮ್ಮ ಭಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ. ಜೊತೆಗೆ ಅನುಸರಿಸಬೇಕಾದ ಸಾಂವಿಧಾನಿಕ ಕೋರಿಕೆ.
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