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Check what will be Missing from NDA's 3rd yr Report Card
- Published on 01 May 2017
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(Image Courtesy: PIB)
The NDA Government is set to get into chest-thumping mode next month. The word had last month gone to all ministries to list all achievements for inclusion in the NDA’s report card for its 3rd year. Modi Government would complete three years in office on 25th May 2017.
A news story dated 31st March 2017 stated that Information and Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu has urged all ministers to garner all attainments and communicate them to masses.
The story quoted Mr. Naidu’s note to ministers as stating “We need to transform ourselves into mission mode to present to the people the three-year report card ... we must prepare concrete action plan and be ready with facts, figures, data to propagate the government's achievements in a big way”.
The most interesting part of news is that two editors-turned-MPs have been assigned the task of countering “any possible negative narratives”.
Should self-certified, sterling performance of Modi regime overshadow its alarming governance deficit. Bhakts might well ridicule even whispers about governance deficit as outlandish and irrelevant. They believe Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies are repeatedly getting thumbs-up from voters. This is a fallacy.
Have voters endorsed increase in unemployment rate for three years in row? Has electorate voted for continued paralysis in framing National Employment Policy (NEP), which is key to reforming labour markets and growth? Have citizens voted against BJP’s 2014 poll promise of “Zero Tolerance on Terrorism, Extremism and Crime”? This resolve is articulation of Modiji's forgotten quote: “Terrorism and Modi cannot coexist in country”. The ground realty is contrary with Mr. Modi rocking and terrorism rocketing.
India has strong case to revoke Indus Water Treaty
- Published on 21 October 2016
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Flooded Indus 5th September 2010.
(Image Courtesy: earthobservatory.nasa.gov)
“The Indus Water Treaty (IWT) was an international treaty and India could not revoke it unilaterally,” stated Sherry Rehman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
A Pakistan Government release last month also quoted her as saying that “India had adopted a policy of ‘water terrorism’ against Pakistan”. The propaganda release is headlined ‘Stopping of water by India to be considered an act of war: Senators.’
Sherry is clever by half. So are many Indian peaceniks and Pak apologists who have flooded the media with warnings and scare-mongering to browbeat Modi Government from tinkering with IWT.
Had they cared to respect blacked-out facts, they would have realized that India has a genuine case to rescind archaic IWT, which was signed in September 1960. This would become crystal-clear later in this column.
The first fact that Sherry and her ilk have not disclosed is that their contention against unilateral revocation is hypocritical. This same contention was once made by India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, when Pakistan backtracked.
“An agreement between two parties could not be abrogated by unilateral action,” he stated on 8th July 1954 while referring to IWT precursor, Inter-Dominion Agreement (IDA) on Punjab Canal Waters dated 4th May 1948. It provided reasonable framework for resolving canal water dispute between West Punjab (Pakistan) and East Punjab (India).
Kejriwal, Read History on Delhi Statehood & Abort Draft Bill
- Published on 12 May 2016
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(Image Courtesy: Delhi Tourism)
What is common between late Lala Deshbandhu Gupta, a freedom fighter, and Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi Chief Minister? A lot.
Mr. Gupta humiliated and ridiculed Dr. B.R. Ambedkar while belligerently pitching for Statehood for Delhi in the Constituent Assembly during the late forties. Mr. Kejriwal is repeatedly insulting India’s first OBC Prime Minister with a national mandate, Narendra Modi, in his quest for more power that he would get as Chief Minister of fully fledged Delhi State.
Both the activists preferred Delhi citizens’ right for self-determination to the national unity. Mr. Gupta, however, ultimately let nationalism prevail over regionalism as we find later in this column. Can Kejriwal see Delhi through the prism of national unity and thus limit his demand to seeking control over municipal corporations & other utilities controlled by the Centre?
This throwback from history is relevant to Mr. Kejriwal's recent tweet that he would soon release draft Bill for Delhi's full Statehood. He is again raking up one of the most flogged governance issues. Over-flogged because it was intensely studied and wisely disapproved by Constituent Assembly, States Reorganization Commission (1954), Balakrishnan Committee (1989), Parliament's Standing Committee on Home Affairs (December 2003). Two ex-PMs, Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri, disapproved statehood proposal to sustain and promote national integration.
Before elaborating the issue - Delhi as national capital (representing interest of all states & Union) versus Delhi as a fully fledged State like Bihar, see how Mr. Gupta insulted Dr. Ambedkar, the chief architect of Indian Constitution and champion of social justice. This will put in perspective Mr. Kejriwal’s repeated slurs on the office of Prime Minister.
Fix Accountability of both Political Executive & Civil Services
- Published on 02 May 2016
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(Image Courtesy: PIB)
The Neta-Babu cozy ties have lately come under fresh phase of strain. And the strain is serious one to merit scrutiny. This will show how civil servants and ministers have jointly derailed or sidetracked vital administrative reforms over the decades. And both have thus taken the public for a ride!
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month did loud thinking on declining accountability of officials to elected representatives of people. Replying to debate in Lok Sabha on President’s budget session address to Parliament, he sought the cooperation of the Opposition to devise means to increase accountability of the executive.
Without cooperation of all MPs, he believed, this challenge can’t be overcome. “The government of the day would get abused, second government would come and the executive would continue to have merry time,” Mr. Modi bemoaned. (translated from his Hindi speech)
Delhi Chief Minister, Avind Kejriwal, outdid PM while delivering a lecture on civil service day on 20th April 2016. Mr. Kejriwal pitched for a bureaucracy that is totally committed to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that swept to power with brute majority.
He recollected suspension of two officials of DANICS cadre by Delhi Government and the resulting one-day protest leave availed by cadre officials in December 2015. And he thundered: “We can tolerate anything but we will not tolerate politics. If you are interested in politics, then resign, contest elections and confront us.”
Referring to a letter sent to him by a very senior Delhi Official, Mr. Kejriwal reportedly said: “This officer wrote that the permanent bureaucracy is the government, the minister is not the government. Bureaucracy is the government.”
Well, it is not for the first time that he has berated bureaucracy.
In December 2015, he had described the officials’ protest leave as an act of “goodaism”. He warned bureaucrats that his government would throw them out of Delhi if they did not follow their orders. He also did loud thinking on replacing generalist bureaucrats with professionals and experts to bring innovations in governance.
Governance