While the main accused of Bihar sex scandal Nikhil Priyadarshi and some of his accomplices have been arrested, police is still not able to arrest Brajesh Kumar Pandey – the former Vice President of Bihar Congress and brother of NDTV journalist Ravish Kumar – who has also been accused by the complainant girl.
The complainant, who was minor (underage) when she was allegedly sexually exploited by Nikhil and Brajesh, belongs to the dalit community and is daughter of a Congress leader. Nikhil and his accomplices are also accused of running a sex racket, which may involve many high-profile personalities from state politics and administration.
Nikhil and his father were arrested on 14th March in Uttarakhand and are currently under police custody. Police is investigating them and trying to get more details about the case.
Earlier it was reported that Nikhil had threatened to spill the beans about many influential people if he was troubled in this case. He claimed to possess objectionable videos of many politicians according a to a report in Jansatta.
Latest reports suggest that Nikhil has not yet “exposed” anyone. He is currently denying the charges and claiming that his relationship with the complainant girl was consensual. However, Nikhil accepted that he and Brajesh Kumar Pandey were friends.
Nikhil is further reported to be bragging about his “contributions” to Bihar and claimed that even he wanted to be a politician like Brajesh Kumar Pandey.
According to a report published in Hindustan, Nikhil revealed that he and Brajesh Kumar Pandey were hiding at a politician’s residence in Delhi while both of them were absconding. Nikhil is then speculated to have traveled to places like Kanpur, Lucknow, Shimla, and in Uttarakhand where he was finally arrested. But Brajesh Kumar Pandey is still absconding.
It is now suspected that Brajesh Kumar is still hiding in Delhi. The report in Hindustan claims that even Nikhil has told the police that Brajesh Kumar is in Delhi.
Earlier, opposition leaders like BJP’s Sushil Kumar Modi had claimed that the Bihar police was deliberately going slow on Brajesh Kumar. Some reports too had suggested that there was pressure on police to go slow on Brajesh Kumar, because he was the brother of Ravish Kumar, an influential journalist on the national scale.
On 11thMarch, as Uttar Pradesh assembly election results started pouring in, there was a complete rout of the left-liberal narrative related to the elections. Every analysis and every projection was flung and tossed around with an impunity rarely seen before.
As if that was not bad enough for the secular jamaat, 18th March saw huge amounts of salt being rubbed on to their still sore wounds. Yogi Adityanath was declared as the next Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. This was the classic case of adding insult to injury.
Every Media personality had his or her take on the “alarming” situation. Some rediscovered the ground beneath their feet quickly, while some others are still grappling with this unforeseen tragedy.
It was during that time that Vikram Chandra from NDTV tweeted about how around the world, ABNORMAL is now becoming the new NORMAL:
Around the world, the abnormal is becoming the new normal.
How does one qualify this situation as abnormal? Yogi Adityanath is a 5-time MP with an excellent constituency and Parliamentary record. Normal enough to be elected. What makes the situation “abnormal” is that he wears saffron clothes and has doggedly opposed minority pandering in Gorakhpur. In all fairness, these are subjective views which can be coloured by ones cultural, religious or political leanings. So, I would grant the media their right to be paranoid.
Now coming to the amusing bit. In the past three odd years, we have seen actual situations where the left-liberals have supported or opposed ideas in a manner which could not be deemed NORMAL by any rational, right thinking mind. Here is an attempt to list some of those:
1. Support for Yakub Memon
The country witnessed intellectuals knocking at the doors of the Supreme Court in a midnight rendezvous to save Mr Memon, someone who was judicially implicated for the death of hundreds of victims of the 1993 Mumbai blasts. To make matters worse, we saw publications like The Indian Express say “and THEY hanged Yakub”, in a clear attempt to portray the State as an aggressor. And that was only because it was the BJP government in the Centre.
But that was NORMAL.
2. Bharat Tere Tukde Honge
That some students in a renowned University chant about secession of states from India and our “respectable” intellectuals advocate their Freedom of Expression, remains one of the most shameful episodes of post 2014 times (or as they say, in Modi’s India). If that was not bad enough, there were youthful politicians like Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal who went there to express solidarity with the ones desirous of Breaking India. One still has not been able to digest the fact that secessionist forces were encouraged in TV studios and editorials. And that was only because it was the BJP government in the Centre.
But that was NORMAL.
3. Open Defecation
The PM launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014 with a lot of hope and fanfare. While execution and results can be debated, no one with their hearts in the right place can question the motives of wanting to have a clean India. Building toilets and reducing open defecation was an integral part of the mission. Now who could have ever had a problem with that? But where there is hate, there is a way. Thus, we saw website run by the former editor of The Hindu come out with an article on supporting, believe it or not, the right to open defecation! And that was only because it was a BJP government led initiative with the stamp of a certain Mr Modi.
But that was NORMAL.
4. Opposition to International Yoga Day
In 2015, The Prime Minister announced June 21st to be celebrated as International Yoga Day. It was an attempt to celebrate our treasured legacy, which has come to be much recognised internationally as well. The mere announcement led to haters tying themselves in knots to denounce the programme. This is a sample among many others of how their personal prejudices were articulated into Yoga hate. To the sane mind, what could possibly be wrong with the universally acknowledged practice of Yoga? Except that it was being highlighted by Mr Modi.
But that was NORMAL.
5. Child Marriage
India is a country where there is a law against child marriage. Despite this, minority pandering has led political parties in Kerala to offer tacit support to the law breakers in this regard. The issue assumes religious overtones as it contravenes the Muslim Personal Law. The then ruling coalition, United Democratic Front was forced by the Indian Union Muslim League to register marriages as legal, even if both the parties were under age.
Now the Left has historically boasted of challenging Patriarchy and has always claimed to espouse Women’s Empowerment. One of the leading luminaries of the Leftist thought process in media, Malini Parthasarthy, then the Editor at The Hindu, had this to say about illegal underage marriages:
@FakeJourno I do not support child marriage but I do say that it’s not for us the majority to dictate to minorities how to live their lives
This was symptomatic of blatant minority pandering while turning a complete blind eye to Indian laws by a vaunted media person. Who in their right mind would stand for an illegal practice that is steeped in patriarchy and backwardness?
But this was NORMAL.
6. Batting for Illegal Slaughterhouses
Yogi Adityanath has hit the ground running to fulfil the promises made in the BJP’s manifesto for UP. One of the promises in the manifesto was the shutting down of ILLEGAL slaughter houses. This predictably has led to a huge hue and cry among the bleeding-heart liberals. The very same people bemoan general Indian antipathy to law and regulations.
Sadly, people who praise the rule of law in developed countries are the first to mock the law when an attempt is made here, citing loss of “public liberties”. The same set of people cry rivers for Jallikattu but encourage inhuman slaughter of animals. They question the impact of Diwali crackers on the environment while turning a deaf ear to the ecological impact of these illegal slaughter houses. Fighting for rule of the land is undermined only because it is being enforced by a BJP government.
But that is NORMAL.
***
Sadly, this is not a comprehensive list. It is purely an anecdotal representation of how far the liberal narrative has moved from anything remotely NORMAL.
There have been jokes about how liberals would stop breathing if Mr Modi were to talk of the benefits of Oxygen. Though that hopefully does seem a bit far-fetched, it may not be too long before we see some of them extol the benefits of Gutka.
Soon you’ll come to know “10 nutrition & health benefits which only paan masala can provide.”
Yesterday, we had exposed how Scroll, the leftist propaganda blog had helped in spreading a rumour that led people to believe that a popular Kabab shop in Lucknow – Tunday Kababi – had gone out of business because the new Uttar Pradesh government was ‘cracking down on meat’.
The truth was that the shop was closed temporarily on Wednesday due to shortage of meat supply, and that shortage happened not due to any ‘crackdown on meat’ but due to crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses by the state government.
In fact, this chicanery of crafting a misleading headline was exposed by a closer look at that article itself:
Now it appears that since our exposé, Scroll has surreptitiously modified their entire article along with the headline, which means that they too now concede that their headline was dishonest and an enabler in spreading the lie about the shop shutting down for good.
Luckily, we have screenshots to show how the same story has been changed. Look at how the Scroll first spread a rumour and then quietly changed the article to appear “factual”:
From the above comparison, where we have put the original post side-by-side with the edited post, one can clearly see the mischief. The story which originally said a shop had ‘downed its shutters’ now has taken a complete u-turn and claims that the same store has “re-opened”.
There was no mention of “illegal” slaughterhouses in the summary below the headline earlier, which has now been changed to a quote by a representative of the Kabab shop.
It is to be noted that the URL for both the stories remains the same, which reflects the old story’s title:
The tag of being “updated” clearly reveals that the story has indeed been modified (just in case you wondered they were two different reports). Only, that in this case, the story has been turned on its head.
Further down the comparison, we see the nuance playing out, which was so evidently missing in the original story:
So the Tunday Kababi at Akbari gate in Lucknow, had shut shop temporarily on Wednesday, after its supply of beef (buffalo meat) had halted probably because its suppliers were illegal slaughterhouses, because even the Scroll article notes that illegal slaughterhouses are being closed down. Meanwhile, another outlet, which runs by the same name at Aminabad in Lucknow, had remained open on both the days, and this fact was brought out only in the revised article.
Leaving aside the technicalities, it is amusing to see how the same story can be presented in 2 completely different fashions by the same “news” site. Also, it shows that how the headline – the most important part of the story in an era where people prefer all news in 140 characters – can become a vehicle to spread lies, even if the main body of the article (unwillingly) tries to present some “facts”.
It was the night of 23rd March 2003. At about 10:30 PM at night masked terrorists entered Nadimarg, a sleepy village in Pulwama District of Jammu and Kashmir and massacred 24 Kashmiri Pandits including men, women and toddlers.
Now 14 years later we revisit the dastardly incident and remember just one aspect of one of the biggest injustices heaped on the citizens of this country since independence. We were aided in this story by the tweets of Journalist Rahul Pandita who provided information which the establishment has tried to hard to stifle.
In 2003 the village of Nadimarg was home to only some 52 Kashmiri Pandits spread across 4 extended families, with others having already fled the valley during the 1990 exodus of their community. In the days leading up to the massacre, on 21st and 22nd March the assailants which comprised of members of a terrorist group and some youths from a nearby village scouted Nadimarg to ascertain the location of the Kashmiri Pandits.
And on that fateful night of the 23rd, they came with guns. As Rahul narrates, Pandits were taken to a courtyard, made to kneel down and and shot in their heads. The assailants didn’t even spare toddlers.
The police later provided a token security to the surviving Pandits in the desperate hope that they stayed on. Not because they wished for the Pandits to remain in their motherland but because they wanted to ensure that the ashes of the victims were disposed off in Kashmir. They feared their making way to Jammu and then possibly getting paraded on the streets could have become an instigator for communal riots.
Mohan Bhatt one of the survivors of this attack recounted how he had managed to save himself by hanging on a roof wedge. His parents, sister and uncle weren’t so fortunate. To further aggravate his pain, the very next day he caught a man from his own village selling his dead mother’s Dejharu, a piece of jewelry sacred to Kashmiri Pandits.
Mohan revealed another shocking detail when he claimed that the terrorists were even accompanied by a few policemen. Even reports from 2003 were suggestive of an investigation against 9 police officers for being complicit in the crime. There were also reports of two terrorists involved in the attack visiting the nearby police picket for months before the attack. But almost all the facts still lie behind a veil of secrecy.
The motive? The assailants reportedly wanted to celebrate Pakistan Resolution Day which also falls on 23rd March or wanted to extol revenge for the post Godhra riots in Gujarat. We might never know as the local police hasn’t made any effort to reveal the identity of the killers let alone punish them.
Most of the above details are a result of a ground zero investigation by Kashmiri Pandit Sangarsh Samiti (KPSS) an organisation formed by a group of Pandits who have stayed back in the valley. The president of KPSS Sanjay K Tikoo called it a well planned attempt and also alleged that nobody has been for the heinous attack.
Its been fourteen years since the attack took place and battling the haunting memory of that fateful night, the Pandits from Nadimarg still await justice.
I am a Kashmiri Hindu living in exile. People have often asked me about Kashmir. Some even suggested that I blog about Kashmir. I never did that. I’ve never been comfortable with sharing what was a truly traumatic experience, because it’s like going through it all over again. I get really emotional when talking about Kashmir. It has been a very difficult phase in our lives.
Then I saw this tweet by former Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Omar Abdullah:
Who is repeating the lie here?
He calls it a lie, but the truth is, his father, Farooq Abdullah, left Kashmiri Hindus to die as he failed to protect them as the then Chief Minister. As if that wasn’t enough, his son picks at our wounds and calls the Hindu Genocide in Kashmir a lie.
And he is not the only one, of late, there have been many who are indulging the Indian version of “holocaust denial”. History is being rewritten as if Hindus left the valley of their own or they were not victims of religious bigotry and communal violence.
This is due to a parochial worldview, where Hindus are not “people like us”. This feeling is betrayed by the following tweets by Omar, where he not only falsely attributes a statement to the new Uttar Pradesh CM, he shows that he cares about Muslims of Kashmir only:
A lie and a propaganda
No wonder Kashmiri Hindus were killed and forced to leave their homes. No wonder, Jammu and Ladakh have been ignored completely and have seen no development in all these years.
But time has come to speak up and share our stories, else a lie will be repeated a thousand times till it becomes a truth, ironically what Omar says in one of his tweets above.
Not that I wasn’t aware of this mentality, but I was appalled to see that there is almost a systematic campaign to deny the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus.
Which is why I want to share my story.
The greatest brunt of any war is borne by the kids. I decided to write about how I felt as a kid and how I feel about it now as an adult.
My memories of Kashmir, our home and life there, are painted with the unrelenting terror I felt while I was there. I was just a small kid, not even in school yet to learn new rhymes. But the lessons that I was learning were very difficult.
Once I was traveling with my mother in a matador during the day time. I was sitting in her lap. The matador was full, with mainly ladies and kids. There were a few men as well. Suddenly, stones were hurled at our matador by a huge mob of Muslim men, who were running towards us.
“They are coming”, someone said, “to set the vehicle on fire”.
I didn’t understand what was happening. Many ladies started screaming and crying. Seeing them, I started crying too, hardly realizing the danger we were in. My mom told me, “Nothing will happen, don’t worry”.
To this day, I can scare fathom how scared she must’ve been. The driver accelerated and we were able to escape the mob. It was a horrifying experience which I remember to this day.
Not that life beyond such incidents was rosy. Schools were shut down. For us children, it was play time. But our parents were dead scared.
My cousin, a teenager, came back crying home one day. Between sobs, she told my mother what had happened. She and her friend were on their way to tuition, when a few men stopped them. They threatened them of dire, yet unspoken consequences, unless they started covering their heads. Those men had shaved the side mugs of one of her classmates, as she had refused to cover her head.
Today, in myriad forms and in endless Women’s Marches, so-called liberals defend the Hijab and the Niqab as “Muslim culture”, “modest dressing” or, even more gallingly, as “Women Empowerment”. I merely shake my head in silence and deep contempt over this.
Meanwhile, the slogans from mosques kept getting louder. We used to live in the dark and have our dinner under a candle light, so that “they” (terrorists) wouldn’t know that we were still living there. I have seen a few men, with their faces covered and guns in their hands, calmly walking outside our door. They used to make lists of Kashmiri Hindus, who defied their diktat by daring to live in the valley. Later, those Kashmiri Hindus would get a letter asking them to vacate their homes.
One morning I got up, crying and shivering. I has seen a dream where I saw those men killing my parents. For very long time, I used to get scared if I saw a man donning a beard and wearing a skull cap. Would you blame me?
Many people call us cowards for not fighting back. They even ask how this exodus happened and why we weren’t prepared. Well, we never thought it would come to this. We believed that the Indian government wouldn’t let this happen. We were betrayed not only by the then Chief Minister, Farooq Abdullah, but also by the Government of India.
The very first instinct of any human being would be to save the lives of his/her loved ones, not to fight terrorists. Any parent would first think about their child’s safety and future. And they know their children won’t be able to survive if the parents simply aren’t around.
In the first few years after the exodus, our community battled against all odds merely to survive. I don’t believe that only those who physically confront enemies are brave. It requires courage to fight adverse situations. Only a fighter can do that.
I have seen my parents struggle daily for survival, worrying about the future and whether they would manage to feed us tomorrow. Even as the Kashmir phase was painful, it was the life after exodus that was the real struggle. I have seen my parents being insulted by landlords and seeing them being humiliated was tough on us. But hats off to them, that they didn’t let all this impact our studies. They tried their best to ensure we get everything good in life. To me, my parents are my real heroes, not cowards!
We never visited Kashmir after the forced exodus. Kashmir is our home to us. I would never like to return to that place as a tourist. I can never see strangers living in my house. We lived there as a joint family but after the forced exodus, we couldn’t live together as we couldn’t afford big houses anywhere else.
Kashmir was my happy place. I still dream about it sometimes. In my dreams, I am playing with my cousins, and laughing with my family. But, it always ends with a sound of gunshots or a bomb explosion or mob chasing us.
I don’t feel safe about returning to Kashmir when I see videos of small children asking for aazadi:
This is how Kashmiri Muslims preparing next generations with hatred for India. Extremely disturbing pic.twitter.com/yMXgCGOFA3
You know something, these children have parents who love their religion and Jihad more than the kids. They are willing to poison their minds and make them terrorists. While we had parents who loved us more than anything else. They left everything and struggled to make us doctors, engineers, writers, etc.
I am not sure whether we will ever be able to live in Kashmir again in our lifetime, or if we’ll ever get justice. I just hope that no state in India becomes another Kashmir, where news about atrocities against Hindus are actively suppressed and later attempts are made to erase signs and stories of those atrocities.
Growing up, from relatives, on the radio or on TV, I would hear snippets of the poems that Lalleshwari, a 14th Century Kashmiri poetess and mystic, composed. After all these years, a single line stays with me forever, encapsulating everything that I cannot say.
Pining for her lord Ishvara, for an existence beyond this mortal plane, Lalla sang. She cried out, “Aa’mayan taa’kyain poo’en zan sha’maan, Zuw chum bra’maan gha’r gach’hah.”
Roughly translated, it says, “Like crystalline water in cups of unbaked clay, I run entirely to waste. My very being yearns, all I wish is to go home.”
All I wish is to go home.
All I wish is to go home.
All I wish is to go home…
Scroll, the leftist propaganda blog became one of the latest publication to spread the misinformation and lies about the decision and impact of crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses by the Uttar Pradesh government.
UP: Lucknow’s legendary Tunday Kababi downs its shutters as meat crackdown intensifies
Read the headline again. Not only it fails to clarify that the crackdown is against illegal slaughterhouses and not against “meat”, it suggests as if the famous Kabab joint in Lucknow had gone out of business. If there was an award for dishonestly crafting a sentence to push a propaganda, Scroll wins it hands down right there.
The propaganda worked as news portal Firstpost published a report, making the Scroll article their source, and titled it “Tunday Kababi in Lucknow shuts down after Yogi Adityanath announces UP slaughterhouse ban“.
Since most people read just headlines, it was widely believed that a legendary eatery had gone out of business.
Seizing the opportunity, eminent journalists soon jumped on the outrage bandwagon and lamented about the loss of Lucknow’s joy and history:
If so this is beyond terrible. Would expect @UPGovt to step in here.Tunday Kababi is part of Lucknow’s joy and history. https://t.co/Gdex9hiCQJ
Just as the masses were beginning to wonder if the joint would ever open for business, people started tweeting pictures which showed the Kabab joint was not just open but was buzzing with activity:
Delhi is spreading rumors about Tundey Kebabi Aminabad being shut, It was closed for an hour due to shortage of raw material. #LivePicturespic.twitter.com/JV9mPlMwov
The truth is, the eatery was closed temporarily on Wednesday due to the lack of meat as illegal slaughterhouses are being closed down. The eatery was opened today, though it was unable to serve buffalo meat and mutton as it couldn’t source the meat.
This, however, raises the questions if the eatery, which opened way back in 1905, had been sourcing all its meat from illegal slaughterhouses? Because the state government has clarified that licensed slaughterhouses would be allowed to function as usual.
Perhaps yes, because a journalist named Faisal Fareed reported that there was no legal slaughterhouse in Lucknow! This is in line with a report that was published last year:
Lucknow does not have any legal slaughter house. After 110 years Tunday Kababi shop in old Lucknow ws closed yesterday due to meat shortage.
So apart from reaffirming the website Scroll as a leftist propaganda blog, the incident reaffirms how businesses, right in the capital city of Uttar Pradesh, could have been running without following rules and regulations all these years. This exposes the level of law enforcement by earlier regimes.
Strangely, the media could never spot an opportunity for an investigative report about how popular eateries could be willingly or unwillingly helping illegal businesses by sourcing raw materials from them?
The newly elected Chief Ministers of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh recently announced that ministers and top officials in their government will not use red beacons on their cars. This is undoubtedly a welcome step towards changing the VIP culture which exists in our politics.
However, I was reminded of my state Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, who did something on the similar lines 4 years back when she took charge, but somehow it did not attract the same applause as the newly elected leaders have got.
Vasundhara Raje against VIP culture
In fact, the media unfairly reported it as “Kejriwal effect” even though Raje had taken the decision much before Kejriwal became the Chief Minister of Delhi for 49 days. She is one of the best Chief Ministers to have come from BJP, but unfortunately, she gets a raw deal from national media as compared to someone like Devendra Fadnavis or Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
Even on social media, which is considered dominated by the supporters of BJP, she is not really a favorite. Much of it could be due to the never dying whispers that all is not well between her, RSS and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and that she can be soon replaced by someone else. But these are mere speculations that have often been denied.
Rajasthan has not voted any incumbent government back to power since 1993. It has always alternated between the BJP and Congress. As the state gears up for elections next year, can Vasundhara Raje rewrite history?
As someone who hails from the state capital, I believe that she is the best person to pull it off. I relook at some of her achievements which may help her retain the throne. Also, it is an attempt to highlight the most under-rated but one of the most efficient Chief Ministers of India.
Bhamashah Yojana
Named after ‘Bhamashah’ who was a noted minister under Maharana Pratap, the Bhamashah program was kick-started by Vasundhara Raje towards the end of her first tenure but due to regime change, the Congress government placed this very good program on the back-burner. It was relaunched when Raje returned to power with a thumping majority.
The Bhamashah program aims at financial inclusion for women and is in tandem with the Central Government’s Jan Dhan Yojana. Under this, bank accounts of women across the state are opened which help in directly transferring the benefits to their accounts. Here, the women heads of the families get a smart card with biometrics which empowers them as only they can withdraw money. So, the chances of male head wasting the money in liquor and gambling are reduced drastically.
As per the official data, 15.4 crore Direct Benefit Transactions have been done till now. It is highly likely that women will rally behind Raje in the next elections because of the financial freedom their CM has provided them.
Apart from this the Bhamashah Swasthya Bima Yojana provides a cashless cover up to 3 Lakhs to all National Food Security Scheme families. The insurance includes private hospitals also thereby providing quality healthcare to economically weak and encourages hassle free cashless treatment.
States like Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra also have these schemes but New India Insurance Company’s CMD described Rajasthan’s health insurance scheme as the best in the country. According to official data, more than 7 lakh people have got themselves treated under this program.
Though the NGOs have criticized the scheme arguing that the government is giving too much into the hands of private owners and there is excessive documentation for availing the treatment, the benefits and stories from ground suggest that the scheme is a winner:
Bhamashah Yojana’s cashless cover helps a poor farmer family, which otherwise might have been forced to sell their land for medical treatment.
Women welfare and empowerment
Rajasthan is one of the worst states when it comes to female sex ratio and women education. However, recent data shows that the female sex ratio has improved in the state and this is another feather in Raje’s cap. After a dismal figure of 888 females over 1000 males in 2011, Rajasthan registered a figure of 929 women per 1000 males in 2015 thereby showing vast improvement.
Likewise, the government has made efforts towards improving the literacy rate of women in the state which is the lowest in the country. Raje’s Rajshree Yojana is an attempt to improve the sex ratio and literacy rate in the state. Under this, the families are provided with an amount of Rs. 50,000 in installments right from birth till the time girl passes Class 12. The amount is linked to the Bhamashah Card ensuring that the money stays with the women of the house. 3.18 Lakh girls have got the first installment since 2016.
It’s surprising that in a state with only 1.1% surface water and where groundwater meets more than 90% of the demand, water conservation has never been a priority for the previous Congress governments.
Taking cue from Maharashtra’s Jal Yukta Shivar, Rajasthan government launched the Mukhya Mantri Jal Swavlamban Abhiyan which aims at preserving rain water and raising the ground water table in the rural areas by involving the people on ground. The execution of the program is done in a participatory manner right till the village community level. More than 3500 villages have been identified in the first phase and the government plans to make them water sufficient by recharging their ponds, lakes, step wells, etc.
In a unique move, the government has also crowd sourced funds for this noble initiative and it has successfully managed to raise more than 49 crores for the same. The government plans to cover 20,000 villages in the coming two years.
Apart from storing the rain water, afforestation is also an important aspect of this program. In the first phase, 26.5 lakh plantations have been done and 93000 water harvesting structures have been created thereby yielding results.
It is said that there is no greater charity than giving someone a glass of water. Maybe, Raje would be blessed by thousands to whom she is providing water through her efforts.
The Reform Queen
Vasundhara is probably the most ‘economically right’ leader in the BJP today. She started her tenure with big bang reforms by making changes in the Contract Labor Act, Factories Act and Apprenticeship Act thereby making it easy for companies to do business in the state.
The amendments make it easy for the employer to fire workers and even close down the operations if they employ up to 300 staffers without taking government approval. Likewise, the changes in Apprenticeship Act creates a conducive environment and makes it easy for industry to create jobs.
Success of these reforms can be gauged from the fact that many other states and even the Union government adopted some of these changes.
Rajasthan also became the first state in the country to pass the titling act which provides statutory backing to land records. Till now, the registration of property only identifies two parties as buyer and seller respectively but it doesn’t guarantee that seller is indeed the owner. The new act changes that and a landmark decision like this should have been celebrated across the country but unfortunately it was not. LiveMint did an excellent piece on the same.
Annapurna Rasoi
Started few months back, Annapurna Rasoi aims at providing three time meal to economically weak people at nominal prices. Started on the lines of Amma canteens in Tamil Nadu, these mobile kitchens serve breakfast for Rs.5 while lunch & dinner at Rs.8. Targeted towards daily wage workers, students, auto drivers; the scheme is launched in 15 cities in Rajasthan and will be expanded in the coming months.
Amma canteens were a huge hit in Tamil Nadu and played a major role in the victory of late Jayalalitha. If the quality of food is maintained (there were reports of people being unhappy) and it is executed well in other parts, Raje sure can hope to reap benefits in 2018.
Good governance
Apart from these, there are many other initiatives that she has taken to improve governance in the state. Right from connecting villages through roads under the ‘Gramin Gaurav Path’ program to ensuring that branded consumer products reach the villages at ‘Annapurna Bhandar’ centres, she is leaving no stone unturned to change rural Rajasthan. Crime rate in Rajasthan has seen a decline after many years and incidents of robbery and kidnappings have come down largely.
The present tenure of Raje has not seen any major controversy and her government has been more or less devoid of any corruption charges. Thankfully, the Gujjars are also silent this time and the opposition though has a young leader as its face, given lack of administrative experience, it is no guarantee that he can turn the tide in the favor of Congress.
The only thing she needs is better publicity & image management to curb the murmurs on social media and some on the ground also, that she has been nothing but average till now. Vasundhara has set the ball rolling with a slew of programs and reforms but it is imperative that the remaining part of the tenure sees effective execution of these schemes so that the benefits reach the people, and they acknowledge the efforts of the government.
If this happens, she is poised to rewrite the history.
Senior congress leader Janardhan Poojary, who was a union minister and headed Karnataka Congress once, has stated that the daughter of Priyanka Gandhi will be the one who will be the saviour of the Congress party.
This claim about Priyanka’s daughter, Miraya Vadra, who is currently 14 years old, is apparently based on a prediction by an astrologer in Haridwar, who said there would never be a leader like Miraya in India in the future.
The chain of events leading up to the prediction of the astrologer unfolded in the following manner: As claimed by Poojary, who was the right hand man of both Indira and Rajiv, some years ago Sonia Gandhi gave him the horoscope of Miraya so that he could show it to a certain Mr Jischkar who was good at astrology. It was Jischkar who referred Poojary to this great astrologer in Haridwar.
This belief by a senior Congress leader is perplexing as whenever the phrase ‘revival of the Congress party’ is uttered, loyalists immediately associate Priyanka as the one capable of achieving this [1][2][3][4], though Priyanka herself has exhibited Rahul Gandhi like traits which probably have complicated matters.
Of course, the attention of Congress moved to Priyanka Gandhi only after multiple failed attempts at launching the prince, Rahul Gandhi. Thus, we saw the emergence of many such posters:
So now does it mean that slowly veteran Congress leaders are realising that the current generation of the family isn’t capable of saving the ship, and they now need to pin their hopes on the next generation?
This isn’t the only time children of Priyanka Gandhi have been in the news. In 2014, some media houses had published speculations about Rahul Gandhi adopting Priyanka Gandhi’s son Rehan so that he could use the Gandhi surname. These speculations were strongly denied by Priyanka who also reportedly sent legal notices to the newspapers who carried this news.
Whatever be the status of next generation of Gandhis in politics, this news certainly led to a lot of amusement for people on Twitter:
Priyanka Vadra’s daughter will save the Congress party,says Janardhan Poojary
Has Lutyens Given up on Priyanka ?https://t.co/12jq8fKR5R
Yogi Adityanath has taken charge as the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and action has already started. He has taken various decisions, but the one that is making the most noise of late is closing down of slaughterhouses.
If one goes mostly by the headlines appearing in various media organisations, it appears as if Yogi wants to turn UP into a vegetarian state and all slaughter houses are being closed down. In most of the cases, the media maintained ambiguity about whether the slaughterhouses in question were the ones which were being illegally operated or whether the government’s action was against all slaughterhouses irrespective of permits.
Before we progress any further, let’s see what the BJP had promised in its manifesto for the UP assembly elections [pdf]:
The relevant part is the point number 2 in the above picture, which is from the part where the manifesto talks about animal husbandry. It says (emphasis added):
All illegal slaughterhouses would be closed with full force, and all mechanized slaughterhouses would have ban/restrictions imposed.
So as the point in manifesto clearly mentions, the illegal slaughterhouses have their days numbered (as they should have, because they are illegal) and the mechanized slaughterhouses would be banned or restricted (based on how you interpret the Hindi word ‘pratibandh‘).
Ideally, mechanized slaughterhouses should be banned or have restrictions imposed only if either they don’t have some required clearance or if they are found breaking some rules e.g. not stunning the animal before slaughter. The same was confirmed by the Uttar Pradesh government earlier:
Also, if the licensed slaughterhouses violate rules, strict action would be taken against them: Shrikant Sharma, UP minister. pic.twitter.com/MDEEfAr6Sw
So it is clear that the current clampdown on slaughterhouses is only on those that are illegal.
Now let us see how some media houses have reported the issue, starting with NDTV:
NDTV wrote a post titled, ‘Yogi Adityanath Orders Cops To Start Work On Banning Slaughterhouses‘
The Mint wrote a post titled, ‘Yogi Adityanath orders closure of slaughter houses in Uttar Pradesh‘
The New Indian Express wrote a post titled, ‘Uttar Pradesh slaughter houses on chopping block‘
Business Standard reported: ‘Adityanath orders closure of all slaughter houses in UP‘
Economic Times wrote: ‘Yogi Adityanath orders closure of slaughter houses, bans cow smuggling in UP‘. In fact, Economic Times goes on to quote some sources and writes “The sources, however, did not specify the type of slaughter houses which will be shut.“
So in most of the cases, the headlines plus a sizable part of the reports didn’t clarify, or rather created confusion over the fact that it is only the illegal slaughterhouses that are being closed down.
To be fair, Amit Shah in an election rally had mentioned that BJP intended to ban all slaughterhouses so that cows and buffaloes can be used to create “rivers of milk” in the state. This could have led to the confusion that all slaughterhouses will be banned.
However, the manifesto and the latest statements from the state ministers confirm that only the illegal ones are being targeted. In fact, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath himself clarified that only illegal slaughterhouses will be shut down.
Furthermore, as per this report published in 2016, only 1 out of 126 slaughterhouses in UP had a valid permit. So if it appears that every slaughterhouse is being targeted, it is because almost all of them didn’t have the required permissions. These were allowed to be run by the previous state governments without proper licenses or clearances. Therefore, even in absence of clarification, the media houses could have highlighted this fact, but they chose to keep it ambiguous.
The AAP government in Delhi has received a rap on its knuckles after the Delhi state election commission directed authorities to remove the name ‘Aam’ from all the hoardings, billboards, nameplates and banners of Mohalla Clinics and from an express bus service the government had launched.
This comes in light of the model code of conduct in the National Capital Territory coming in force from 14th March for the the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections on 22nd April.
The AAP government had branded these two services as Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinics and Aam Aadmi Bypass Express service, which sound close to the political party’s name. It was dubbed as a violation of the model code of conduct as the ruling party is not allowed to use its official position to gain unfair advantage.
BJP leader Vijender Gupta, who is also the leader of opposition in the Delhi assembly, lodged an official complaint in this regard with the state election commission on 20th March:
I complained to SEC of violation of Model Code of Conduct by AAP Govt.SEC seeks action taken report from CS & Municipal Commissioner. pic.twitter.com/kV0pKzljTn
The State Election Commission(SEC) in a letter dated 21st March directed the Chief Secretary, GNCTD (Delhi state government) and the three Commissioners of MCD to ensure appropriate action, and to submit a compliance report within 48 hrs.
The complain from the BJP claimed that the words Aam Aadmi were displayed prominently on the 150 Mohalla Clinics the state government operates in the state. On one of the clinics, Kejriwal’s photos were also affixed on the walls:
One Mohalla Clinic was also cheekily called Aap Ka Mohalla Clinic:
This isn’t the only time the AAP flagship Mohalla Clinic program has come under the scanner. Recently we had reported how the doctors in the Mohalla clinics were checking patients for as little as 27 seconds and also allegedly prescribing bogus medicines so that they could allegedly earn more.
The Aam Aadmi express bus service was launched by the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) in October 2016. This Bus service supposedly runs from the Uttam Nagar bus terminal to Sarai Kale Khan ISBT, connecting three National Highways; NH-1, NH-10 and NH-24. Apart from the inexplicable use of Aam Aadmi for a bus service, the phrase ‘express’ is also dubious as the bus crews are directed to use slower slip roads instead of flyovers.
One can see the name ‘Aam Aadmi’ vividly displayed on one such bus:
These moves to name public offerings in a way that promotes the party is reminiscent of the Congress’ modus operandi of naming every scheme under sun after member of the Nehru-Gandhi family, so as to possibly ensure people associate the scheme with the Gandhi family and thus the Congress party.
Finally on a lighter note, if this move of the SEC is opposed by the AAP leaders, they shouldn’t object if and when the BJP government at center comes up with a public park and names it Bharatiya Janta Park (BJP).
