The political silly season remains a year-long phenomenon, the idiocy ebbs and flows, the waters rarely stilled by logic, reason or coherence. The most weather-beaten subjects dull the public mind, none more so than Indira Gandhi’s Emergency Rule proclaimed in June 1975 and lifted in late 1977. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley likened Mrs Gandhi’s measure to that of Adolf Hitler’s fiats against democracy in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. One would have thought Mr Jaitley, of all persons in the government, would have had better sense, more respect for the nation’s intelligence, than draw such a bizarre and odious parallel (Hindu June 26, TV channels).
Hitler lives in history as the aggressor responsible for the greatest war fought on Mother Earth, for the Holocaust of the Jewish people in gas chambers, a crime like no other in recorded history.
Ms Gandhi can be faulted for imposing the Emergency but so can the sainted Jayaprakash Narayan’s prior, provocative call to the Army and Police to revolt against an elected government, not to speak of the sabotage of the rail network by George Fernandes, then a trade union activist and subsequently a minister in the BJP government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and his followers. Ms Gandhi revoked the Emergency and held an election, leaving office as soon her party was voted out of office.
She was returned to power in January 1980 with a two-thirds majority in Parliament, the Emergency plainly forgiven by the Indian people following three years of asinine Janata Party maladministration.
BJP leader in media death threat
Senior BJP Choudhary Lal Singh called on the Kashmir media to mend their ways or go the way of the assassinated Kashmiri journalist Sujaat Bukhari. In a joint statement, the Indian Women’s Press Corps, the Press Club of India, the Press Association issued the following statement: ‘We demand that strict action be taken against the lawmaker …for intimidation and attack on the freedom of the press.’ (Times of India June 25)
Arun Jaitley, thus far, has remained silent.
Amit Shah on song
Having taken pause of Indira Gandhi, the BJP President Amit Shah, on a two-day visit to West Bengal, addresses the faithful one of Bengal’s greatest literary icons, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the subject being his famous composition ‘Bande Mataram,’ an evocation of the Mother Goddess. According to Amit Shah, the Congress Party decision in 1937 to avoid singing its supposedly contentious verses was apparently the root cause of the Subcontinent’s subsequent Partition in August 1947 (Hindu June 28).
Cult of illiteracy
With this level of cultural illiteracy, his party’s avowed goal of winning seats in the next State Assembly elections in 2019 will hover closer to zero. Shah would do well to consult Venkat Dhulapali’s magisterial work based original Urdu documentary sources, Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam, and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Shah should read also B.R.Ambedkar on the Partition, and having done so, arrange for translations into Hindi and Gujarati of this seminal document.
Moral policing, lynching
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Arun Jaitley would have done better to address the continuing scourge of lynching and moral policing, increasing numbers of rapes in the country, most of which keep occurring in the BJP-ruled States of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Haryana and Rajasthan. A global report by Thomson Reuters cites the perception of India as the most unsafe country for women, surpassing Pakistan, Afghanistan and other world trouble spots. The fact that crimes against women, especially rapes, are more widespread in the US, for example, is scant consolation for India (Times of India June 26).
Redeeming feature
It isn’t all gloom and doom. A Brookings blog says that the time it takes to read its contents several Indian citizens will have been released from extreme poverty, that is, those earning $1.9 a day. To be precise, 44 Indians move out of this dire bracket every minute. The study published in ‘Future Development’ blog of Brookings says, ‘At the end of May 2018, our trajectories suggest that Nigeria had about 87 million in extreme poverty compared with India 73 million. What is more, extreme poverty in Nigeria is growing by six people every minute, while poverty in India continues to fall.’ The populations of the two countries vary, India’s at 1.2 billion, China’s at 1.3 billion to Nigeria’s around 200 million.
India is thus no longer home to the world’s largest numbers of poor, it has promise of ending extreme poverty by 2030 (Times of India June 27, Business Line June 28).
India, Seychelles build platform for future
India and Seychelles have put together a joint platform for the future development of bilateral ties. Seychelles key to India’s maritime security, as the case with neighbouring Mauritius, both situated in the Indian Ocean between India and the east seaboard of Africa. Seychelles was uncomfortable with the prospect of hosting a fully fledged Indian naval base on its territory, and hence this plan was recast to accommodate the sensitivities of the Seychelles’ people, with security of both the parties suitably addressed.
During a visit to India by Seychelles President Danny Faure, and his talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj,India has agreed to provide Seychelles with a line of credit $100 million to purchase Indian defence hardware principally for coastal surveillance and train Seychelles pilots and other defence personnel. India also gifted Seychelles a Dornier-228 aircraft built at the Hindustan Aircraft Ltd facility near Bangaluru. President Faure described it as an ‘historic day’, as both sides pledged to work together on the Assumption Island (part of the archipelago)project. Trade and investment were packaged into a comprehensive arrangement between the two sides. All’s well that ends well (Economic Times, Mint, Hindu, June 26.27).
Cognizant heads for the stars
It has taken Cognizant Technology Solutions, the US-based IT giant with a large footprint in India, 20 years to grow from $60 million to $15 billion as a Nasdaq-listed company. It has a global workforce of 260,000, of which 75 per cent are Indian (Business Line June 27).
GST spawns job growth
According to the Employees Provident Fund, 4.1 million formal sector jobs were created from September 2017 to April 2018. This contradicts a widespread perception of job- deficient performance. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) designed to create a uniform tax system across India as part of the process to develop and nationally integrated market shows every sign of becoming a force for job creation. GST also provides enforcing a minimum wage structure (Economic Times June 27).
Russia delivers M-17 IV Helicopters to BSF
Russian Helicopters, an arm of Rostec State Corporation, delivered overhauled M-17 IV helicopters to India’s Border Security Force (BSF) for rescue and transport purposes. With new avionics and hydraulics, the Russian production plant has been acclaimed by India’s military specialists, and further deals are now under discussion. The Indian Air Force has has four squadrons of these helicopters in service (Business Line 28).
India stands by Russia at OPCW meet
India voted with Russia at the Special Session of the Chemical Weapons Conventions in the Hague, convened by Britain to propose that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) should be empowered, not just investigate whether chemical weapons were used in an incident at the English city of Salisbury. The Indian Ambassador and Permanent Representative to OPCW, Venu Rajamony said it was important that there should be consensus on such matters, that the credibility and integrity of the organization not be undermined by political disputes (Economic Times June 28).
Delhi Metro reduces pollution
Addressing a gathering at the opening of a new Green Line, the third connection between the capital and Haryana, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Delhi’s expanding Metro network would soon be the world’s fifth largest after Beijing, London, Shanghai and New York. He said the Delhi Metro had taken 600,000 vehicles off the roads, saving time and money and reducing pollution. The Prime Minister said his government was committed to a new and smart infrastructure, with optimum investments in waterways, airways, highways and the net (Hindu June 25).
Congress, JDU(S) locking horns in Karnataka
The coalition Karnataka government led by the Janata United (Secular) party and its Congress partner are still locking horns on sharing the loaves and fishes of office, almost a month after the State Assembly polls. The more things change, the more they remain the same, is a timeless Gallic saying (Mint June 29).
Grand Master at 12!Chennai-based R. Praggnanandhaa, Praggu to his coach and friends, became a Grand Master after defeating Dutch Grand Master Roeland Pruijssers in the ninth and final round of the Fourth International Chess Festival in the Gredine Open at Ortsei, Italy, on June 23, 2018. to become the youngest Indian to have done so at 12 years,10 months and 13 days, and the second youngest ever after Ukraine’s Sergey Karajakin on August 12, 2002. (Hindu June 25).
