Time for Modi to shine nationally

Saswat Panigrahi

The gruesome and unprovoked killing of two Indian soldiers by Pakistani Army has shocked the nation. Pakistani troops entered 600 metres into Indian territory along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch sector and killed Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh. Their bodies were mutilated and their heads were chopped off. One of the heads was carried away by the enemy.

This is a chilling reminder of the brutal torture and killing of Captain Saurabh Kalia and his team by Pakistani troops during the Kargil war.

A soldier represents the nation in the battlefield. No one’s presence is as direct as a soldier’s. Every drop of our soldiers’ blood is sacred to us. The death of a soldier is a huge loss to the nation, a loss which should make us all die a little.

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Congress will wither away in Gujarat

Saswat Panigrahi

Lies, lies and more lies. This is what defines the Congress’s election campaign in Gujarat.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has claimed that that Narendra Modi Government is making “tall development claims” and “hollow promises”. She went to the extent of alleging that the condition of farmers is bad in Gujarat, roads are poor and the law & order situation in the State is in tatters.

But Sonia is sadly mistaken. Ironically, the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, which the Congress president is heading, said in its report that Gujarat is the fastest-growing State in the country. Of the awards given to the States by the Centre in various spheres in the last five years, as much as 60 per cent were bagged by Gujarat.

The State’s per capita income is pegged at Rs 63,961, which is higher than India’s per capita of Rs 46,492. Gujarat has given a record 72 per cent of employment out of total employment provided in the country during the last five years. At a time when nation’s agriculture growth rate is barely 3 per cent, agriculture in Gujarat has been growing at an astounding 11 per cent.

Gujarat is also one of the hottest investment destinations of the world. As for roads, the first thing anyone visiting Gujarat notices about the State is that it has the best roads in the country. 

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UPA clinches a tainted victory

Saswat Panigrahi

Politics makes strange bedfellows. Mulayam Singh Yadav-led SP and Mayawati-led BSP have bailed out the UPA Government in both Houses of the Parliament during the retail FDI vote.

In Lok Sabha, of the 543 members, only 471 voted on the Opposition motion against the Government’s decision to allow 51 per cent FDI in multibrand retail. While 253 members voted against the FDI motion, 218 voted for it. Ahead of the voting, both SP and BSP — which support the Government from outside — walked out of the House, thus helping the UPA sail through the FDI vote in the Lower House.

In the Upper House, of the 250 members, 232 voted on the motion. While 109 members voted in favour, 123 voted against it. BSP stood by the Government during the FDI vote while SP chose to walk out minutes before it happened. The Government scraped through the FDI vote in Rajya Sabha, despite lacking a majority of its own.

UPA-2’s decision to allow 51 per cent FDI in multibrand retail now has the Parliament’s stamp of approval, thanks to the SP and the BSP. FDI policy, after becoming a law will pave ways for multinational corporations like Walmart to colonise Indian economy. The country will have to grapple with the ill effects of this dubious policy. I have no hesitation in saying that FDI in multibrand retail will force us to deal with the equivalent of another East India Company, which will directly affect the livelihood of millions of farmers and small traders.

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Nothing Pyari about BJD’s mounting paranoia

Saswat Panigrahi

The BJD has a competitor now. And it is not the Opposition Congress or the BJP. The threat now comes straight from Naveen Patnaik’s former advertiser-turned bete noire Pyari Mohan Mohapatra.

It was just six months ago Pyari Mohan attempted a failed coup to dislodge Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik when he was away in UK – his first visit abroad in 12 years.

Pyari’s botched-up attempt to gather power in Naveen’s absence initially earned him a suspension and recently an expulsion from the BJD.

Mohapatra, who floated a pressure group called Odisha Jana Morcha (OJM) to “ensure democracy” within the BJD is now converting it into a full-fledged political party. The OJM is a party of BJD dissenters that aims at destabilising the party by eating into its support base.

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Kasab’s execution is not enough

Saswat Panigrahi

Kasab hanged — India woke up to this news last Wednesday morning and citizens heaved a sigh of relief.

It took exactly four years to complete the ‘due process of law’ and execute the lone surviving 26/11 terrorist. Kasab was prosecuted, convicted, given a chance to plead for mercy and finally executed after the President rejected his mercy plea. All this despite — as some argue — him not deserving a full-fledged trial.

Kasab and nine other jihadis brought a gory tale to life with blood in the city of Mumbai, snuffing out the lives of 166 innocent people and wounding more than 300.

Many say the butcher of Mumbai should have been hanged in public, but the Government chose to execute him under a cloak of secrecy in Pune’s Yerwada Jail and revealed the news only after he breathed his last.

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Present tense, future uncertain

Saswat Panigrahi

The BJP has yet again stood by beleaguered party president Nitin Gadkari, whose business affairs related to Purti Group have been the subject of wild speculation in sections of the media.

The BJP core group insists that there was “no legal or moral wrongdoing” by Gadkari and the party has full faith in his leadership. This, after RSS ideologue and chartered accountant S Gurumurthy cleared the BJP president of the charges of alleged business wrongdoing in an internal audit. Gurumurthy had reportedly been asked by the RSS to study the balance sheet of Gadkari-owned Purti Power and Sugar Limited.

The development came in the wake of veteran lawyer and party’s Rajya Sabha MP Ram Jethmalani pressing for the resignation of Gadkari with the apparent backing of some senior leaders including Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha. Earlier Jethmalani’s son, Mahesh Jethmalani, quit the party’s National Executive as a mark of protest.

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BJP can’t forget perception matters in politics

Saswat Panigrahi

The BJP has chosen to rally behind its president Nitin Gadkari who is at the centre of a raging controversy after several media reports questioned the sources of funding for Purti Power and Sugar Limited (PPSL), a company owned by him.

Reports claim that significant investments and large loans to Purti were made by a construction firm, Ideal Road Builders Group, which had won contracts between 1995 and 1999 when Gadkari was Maharashtra’s PWD Minister.

Besides IRB Group, the other significant shareholders in Purti are said to be a clutch of 16 companies. It is alleged that most of the addresses at which these companies are registered are fake. Reports claim that the directors of these investor companies include Gadkari’s driver and his accountant.

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Congress is synonymous with corruption

Saswat Panigrahi

In the backdrop of a series of big ticket scams hitting the nation hard, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is waxing eloquent on matters of corruption.

While addressing the annual conference of the CBI and state anti-corruption agencies, the PM maintained that his Government is doing “everything possible” to ensure “probity”, “transparency” and “accountability”.

One can’t help thinking of the Prime Minister’s mounting number of platitudes regarding corruption as the devil preaching the  scripture. This came at a time when the Congress party and the UPA 
Government it leads are both neck-deep in corruption.

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Sons-in-law are not above the law

Saswat Panigrahi

Senior Supreme Court advocate and India Against Corruption leader Prashant Bhushan have levelled serious allegations of financial malfeasance against the Gandhi dynasty son-in-law Robert Vadra.

In a press conference in the national capital, Bhushan claimed that five companies set up by Vadra and his mother had a total capital share of just Rs 50 lakh in 2007. But, the Vadra-owned companies acquired properties worth well over Rs 300 crore during 2007-2010, whose market value is more than Rs 500 crore, he claimed.

The seed money for the acquisition came from “unsecured interest-free loans” of Rs 65 crore by realty giant DLF in exchange for “favours” received from Congress-led governments in Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi, the anti-corruption activist alleged.

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BJP must get its act together

Saswat Panigrahi

Symbolism has its own importance in politics. And the BJP knows it all too well.

During its recent National Executive and National Council meetings at Surajkund in Haryana, the party sounded the poll bugle. It drew parallels between the upcoming general election and the epic war of Mahabharat.

“In the coming Mahabharat, truth will triumph and corruption will be the loser.” This was the underlying message with which BJP wrapped up its crucial meet.

The meet was held in the backdrop of the Congress-led UPA Government’s decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail, hike diesel prices and imposed a cap on subsidised LPG. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh continues to justify the “need” for such measures as part of his Government’s “hard economic decisions” to “reverse the slowdown.”

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Inflation in benefit of farmers, really!

Saswat Panigrahi

Beni Prasad Verma has now stoked a new row. At a time when rising inflation has left the common man bruised, the Union Minister for Steel came up with a theory which literally stunned the nation. He said that he was "happy" with the soaring prices of food items because according to him, inflation was beneficial to the farmers.

Verma went on to blame the media which was reporting the rise in prices of essential commodities as it was. "Media kehti hai ki khane ki thali mehngi ho gayi hai.. .Isse fayada kisano ka hai, aur sarkar kisano ke fayda ki pakshdhar hai" (Media says cost of food plate has increased but it is benefitting farmers...But, this is helping the farmers. And the government is in favour of farmers’ profit).

Beni Prasad is a senior minister in the Union cabinet and so what he says will be read as the voice of the UPA government.

Remember, another senior Union Minister P Chidambaram recently mocked at the middle class, saying “It cribs too much about price rise”. “The middle class is ready to pay for mineral water and ice cream, but can't bear an increase of Re 1 in price of wheat and rice”, Chidambaram had said.

Excuses, excuses and more excuses – for the ever increasing price rise!

It is no secret that the common

man has been suffering enormously on account of the reckless policy of UPA government. Experts have time and again blamed the government for many of the economic woes that the country has been facing today.

Annual inflation in food articles was pegged at 10.06 percent in July 2010. The figure has been burning holes in common man’s pocket. But the government seems be in a state of inertia and is said to be least bothered, even though the new Finance Minister P Chidambaram has promised to get the economy back on track.

On several occasions, the UPA government has tried to come out with the theory of “imported inflation” and blamed the rise of prices on global phenomenon.

Two global rating agencies - Moody's and Standard and Poor's (S&P) – had severely indicted the Congress-led UPA for pushing India to an economic brink.

Moody's Analytics had said that India was growing but below its potential and blamed UPA government’s politics for weighing on the economy.

As if that was not enough, another report by S&P blamed the UPA leadership for the current economic impasse.

But the government continues to live in denial.

Well… A government which has abysmally failed to rein in the rise in food prices has now come up with a flawed theory to defend its inability. If this is not being insensitive than what is?

It is ironical that the government has suddenly awakened from deep slumber to sympathise with the farmers and in a bid to project itself as a champion of farmers’ cause, a senior minister comes up with - “Price rise is in the interest of the farmers.”

UPA’s new theory to defend inflation is filled with flaws to say the least. One can explain how -

Farmers solely depend on agricultural produce to earn their livelihood. But they never get the supportive price for the products. They mostly sell their agricultural produce to the middle men (traders as they are known as).

When the price of food item increases, it doesn’t swell the farmers’ coffers. It mostly benefits traders or middlemen.

It is unfortunate that the nation is being headed by an economist Prime Minister, whose minister fails to understand this simple logic of economics.

Ramdev’s anti-corruption movement turns political?

Saswat Panigrahi

Baba Ramdev’s satyagraha on the twin issue of corruption and black money ended with the yoga guru courting arrest along with his supporters while trying to march towards Parliament.

To be noted is the fact that his three day fast starting from August 09 extended to five days, with Ramdev waiting in vain for the Congress-led government at the Centre to meet his demands.

While some of the observers are still struggling to decipher what Ramdev’s agitation has achieved so far, one can safely say that the yoga guru has succeeded in creating an anti-establishment storm.

This despite the fact that the crowd at his fast venue was not as substantial as the Baba may have expected it to be. However, the last day of his protest did see a multitude of people thronging to accompany Ramdev in his march towards Parliament.

But as was expected, Ramdev along with his supporters was detained by the police and taken to a makeshift jail in Ambedkar Stadium only to be released later on.

Nonetheless, even with the police not seeing any merit in holding back the yoga guru any longer, the show encompassing Baba Ramdev

does not seem to be over and one may as well see its reverberations in the days to come.

In the course of his fast Ramdev reiterated time and again that his movement was no "political" and that it had "social and democratic agenda" but reading between the lines one may not be so sure of the same.

Baba Ramdev’s August revolution is the replay of his June 2011 movement, which ended with a mid-night crack down on the yoga guru and his peaceful protesters at Ramlila Maidan.

After taking a beating initially, what added credence and weight to Ramdev’s fast this time around was the presence of key Opposition leaders at Ramlila Maidan and sharing the dais with the yoga guru. The list included BJP president Nitin Gadkari, JD(U) chief and NDA convener Sharad Yadav and Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, who took the opportunity to slam the ruling establishment. Earlier BJD and TDP had also sent their emissaries to Ramdev’s protest venue.

So can it be said that with the presence of a galaxy of leaders, most of them from the NDA fold, a movement which started as one against corruption has ended with it becoming a movement against the ruling Congress? In this context, can one say that the beneficiary of Ramdev’s movement is the Opposition? Or shall one say that the Opposition is hijacking Ramdev’s agenda?

Well there are obvious reasons why the Opposition parties are inclining towards the yoga guru.

Seeing Ramdev’s massive clout, the Opposition jumped on the bandwagon of the yoga guru, to convert it into a wave against the Congress. With 2014 General Elections round the corner, why would the BJP and the likes miss this opportunity?

With the Centre ignoring him completely, the yoga guru has now said that he will go among the people to spread the following messages:

1. The Congress-led UPA is shielding black money holders. 

2. The government does not want a strong Lokpal Bill.

Since the beginning of his protest Ramdev kept exhorting the government at the Centre to heed to his demands and take crucial decisions but it was not to be. Despite Ramdev extending his fast and giving the government more time, he got only silence from the other end. Did this prompt the movement to turn political?

Remember, Ramdev wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh listing his demands. His demands included bringing back black money stashed in tax havens, enacting a strong Lokpal Bill and making the process of appointment of Election Commission, Director of CBI, CAG and CVC transparent.

So can we conclude that to ignore Baba Ramdev this time around (after sending five union ministers to the airport to receive him last year) was a well thought out strategy on the part of the ruling party?

The government is free to ignore the yoga guru, but it can’t afford to brush aside the issues he raised. But so far the Congress-led UPA has shown no effective, meaningful or visible action to rein in corruption and bring back black money.

The moot question is – Will the grand old party have to pay a price for this in the next General Elections?