Daily Lessons from Life 08 February 2012 - India ministers quit after caught watching porn in parliament

"India ministers quit after caught watching porn in parliament - Reuters Feb 08, 2012
NEW DELHI - Three Indian politicians from a morally conservative party, including a women's affairs minister, resigned on Wednesday after being caught watching pornography on a mobile phone during a session of state parliament.

News channels broadcast footage showing Karnataka state Minister for Cooperation Laxman Savadi sharing a porn clip with his colleague C.C. Patil, the minister for women and child development, while sitting in the state assembly.

The owner of the phone, state Minister for Ports, Science and Technology Krishna Palemar, also quit.

"We are requesting the honorable Speaker of the House to conduct an inquiry and we'll come out with a clean chit," Patil said, denying that they were deliberately looking at porn.

The three men said they did not want to cause any embarrassment for their party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules the state and is in opposition at a national level.

There has been outrage over the incident not just from rights activists and right-wing Hindu groups in conservative India, but also from the riling Congress party which called for the assembly to be dissolved.

"We live in a country where there already is this social mindset that women are disposable commodities and are seen as transferable properties," Renuka Chowdhary, a former federal minister for women's development and a member of the Congress Party.

"It really is troubling that the people who are in positions of power and have the responsibility to change things actually have the same mindset and are busy watching porn," she told the CNN-IBN news channel.

Girls and women in largely patriarchal India face a barrage of threats including rape, dowry-related murder, forced marriage, domestic violence, honor killings and human trafficking."

Well. What can TOP this act? This extreme stupidity or total disregards for propriety? I am not say watching porn is not good since the Indian created the karmasutra epic. Just that the occasion left much to be desired.

Lessons for me are:

1. KNOW why you are at certain place and behave with respect to that place. The place where you supposed serve the people by engaging in policies debates that will affect billion of people in your country!;

2. when you have a toy, beware of the destructive power it possessed when you try to flout it! Do not be slave to the technologies but let technologies work for you - for the good!;

3. respect yourself and the job your are holding even if it is just a job. A well paying one no less! If you are bored or disinterested, leave with dignity and honor instead of making a monkey of yourself when you are forced to resign for the most unglamourous reason. It will be hard to explain to your grandchildren why are you watching porn when the parliament is in session. Are you a sex addict or a sex maniac? If so, you probably should not be in parliament.

Sexual scandals are nothing new in politics. The ex-President of USA, the ex-PM of Italy all have their sweet and bitter tales to tell. But then, none of them, it seems, did it when the parliament was in session. This one takes the cake!

p/s: Sex is a necessary part of the holistic balance of life. Yet, there is a time and a place for it.