Archive for the ‘Government’ Category
| Once upon a time, when Narendra Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat, he constantly grumbled that too much of the state’s tax money was getting trucked off to New Delhi. He attacked the Centre for not sharing enough from the tax kitty for his state. He turned into a truly parochial satrap when he dared the Centre to stop its funds to the state and not collect any taxes from it in return. What he wanted was 50% share of central taxes for states. But when Modi became the Prime Minister, one of the first things he did was to hold secret negotiations to cut states’ income. The details of this unconstitutional backdoor negotiation are what Shreegireesh Jalihal and Nitin Sethi bring to you as part of our latest story. Immediately after becoming the Prime Minister in 2014, Modi held backdoor negotiations with the Finance Commission to massively cut tax funds allocated to states. You know the Commission is an independent constitutional body, which sits every five years to decide states’ shares from central taxes. Going by the Constitution, the government is not allowed to bargain with the Commission. But, Prime Minister Modi tried. No Choice The head of the Finance Commission, in his “good south Indian English” told the go-between in the secret negotiation: “Go and tell your boss (the Prime Minister) that he has no choice.” Modi had no choice but to back off because he had no authority to negotiate with the Finance Commission. This is one of the many startling revelations made by BVR Subrahmanyam, the current CEO of Niti Aayog and the go-between for Modi in the negotiation with Finance Commission head YV Reddy. Subrahmanyam even warned of a Hindenberg waiting to happen to the Union budget. The Modi government had built up its first budget under the assumption that the Centre would be retaining a greater portion of the central taxes. The Finance Commission’s refusal to cut state’s income punched a big gaping hole in the government’s budget calculations. Believe it or not, the Centre had to redo its maiden budget in 48 hours, arbitrarily paring down budgetary allocation to groups that are considered dispensable for most of the governments: the poor, women and children. And what did Modi say in Parliament? He said he welcomed with open arms what the Finance Commission had recommended as the legitimate share of the states.(Courtesy: The Reporters’ Collective) |
Journalists were invited to have tea (a Bhopal euphemism for an interaction with the Press) with Uma Bharati at her Civil Lines (Government-allotted) bungalow in the afternoon of October 18. She had decided to suspend her six-day-old campaign for removal of Chief Minister Babulal Gaur. Two versions were doing the rounds. One was that the party high command had assured her the chief minister’s gaddi after the Bihar elections. The other was that Atal Behari Vajpayee had conveyed to her in no uncertain terms that the party would have to act tough if she continued with her tantrums at a time when the party was engaged in the crucial elections in Bihar. The journalists reached her residence in large numbers.
First she picked up some journalists, one by one, to give them a piece of her mind for “biased” reporting (anything that does not extol Uma Bharati is biased reporting in her lexicon). The journalists stomached the humiliation without even a token protest. Then she asked them to switch off their tape recorders and video cameras and put the pens in their pockets as what she would say was going to be “off the record” (yes, it was the same Uma Bharati who had been displaying her pique in public at the “off the record” briefings by
other BJP leaders).
For a good part of an hour, Uma enlightened the members of the Fourth Estate on the sexual proclivities of 76-year-old Gaur, stressing that such a durachari and vyabhichari person should not be allowed to remain Chief Minister. After her “tea” with the media persons, the sadhvi delivered at Ravindra Bhavan a religious discourse in which she used mythological symbols and anecdotes to describe Gaur as a reprobate deserving destruction at the hands of the devout and pious.
It was perhaps too much for local reporters to sacrifice their day’s labour on Uma’s “off the record” altar. The following morning a detailed summary of what the sadhvi had said in her two discourses appeared in several
newspapers. It was mentioned in the reports that though Uma did not take any name, she left no one in doubt that she meant Gaur. Emphasis was given to her observation that whoever cast an evil eye on his daughter-in-law or sister-in-law should be butchered forthwith in the cause of justice and piety.
If Gaur took offence at Uma’s fulminations, he did not show. He continued to gleefully hop from place to place in the State. He described Uma as his didi (sister) for whom he had a lot of regard. On another occasion he remarked that his position was only strengthened (whenever such tirades were launched against him). It is not for nothing that the Yadav from the backward Pratapgarh district of Uttar Pradesh wormed his way to the top political position in Madhya Pradesh.
A surprise choice
In fact, it had come as a surprise when Uma had acquiesced to Gaur’s name as her successor when she had to quit as Chief Minister in the wake of the Hubli court case on August 23 last year. The sadhvi had never trusted Gaur and had become particularly allergic to his name in the run-up to the Assembly elections. Gaur was what Uma could not be: hard working, consistent, polite, neither egoist nor egotist, easily accessible to the people and humble in front of the party rank and file alike. His greatest asset was his capacity to keep the media persons in good humour and never grumble about what they were writing or showing. He did take money (of course, in the name of party fund or election fund) but was never known to be greedy. Many of these traits he, though, gave up after becoming the chief minister, the most notable changes being his complete alienation from the media and his reportedly insatiable greed for money.
Even during the prolonged election campaign, Uma had seen a potential and dangerous rival in the septuagenarian politician who had been representing the same Govindpura constituency in the Assembly since 1974. At a lunch for media persons and party leaders hosted by Uma in the middle of election campaign, Gaur remarked before a group of reporters that even he could become chief minister one day. Uma came to know of this a few days later at Betul, where the party leaders had assembled. She was livid with rage and summoned Gaur, who was having his meal on the other side, and berated him in full public view. She had manoeuvred hard to ensure that Gaur was denied the ticket, at least from his Govindpura constituency. Gaur could get it only through the last-minute intervention of Atal Behari Vajpayee.The campaign for removal of Gaur, with a lot of dirt and muck thrown in, was launched by the Uma camp soon after she was freed by the Hubli court in September last year. He has survived so far. Will he now? The fight has reached a crucial and interesting phase. (28 October 2005)
What BJP promised before coming to power completely forgot after it tasted the power at the Centre
#Ensuring minimisation of black money and setting up of a task force for this purpose.
# Putting in place strict measures and special courts to stop hoarding and black marketing.
# Setting up a Price Stabilisation Fund.
# Unbundling FCI operations into procurement, storage and distribution for greater efficiency.
# Evolving a single National Agriculture Market.
# Promoting and support area specific crops and vegetables linked to food habits of the people.
# Developing high impact domains like labour intensive manufacturing, tourism, and strengthening traditional employment bases of agriculture and allied industry.
# Harnessing opportunities provided by the upgradation of infrastructure and housing.
# Encouraging and empowering youth for self employment and transforming employment exchanges into career centres.
# Eliminating corruption through public awareness, e-governance, rationalisation and simplification of tax regime.
# Harmonising Centre-state relations by evolving model of national development driven by the states.
# Setting up a Team India initiative which will include the PM and CMs as equal partners.
# Ensure fiscal autonomy of states and creation of regional councils of states of common problems and concerns.
# National Development Council and Inter-state Council will be revived and made into active body.
# Involving state governments in promotion of foreign trade and commerce.
# Greater decentralisation through
# Complete all pending fencing work along the India-Bangladesh and India-Myanmar border.
# Dealing with insurgency with a firm hand.
#BJP to draft a Uniform Civil Code drawing upon the best traditions and harmonising them with the modern times.
# Foreign policy will be guided through pragmatism and doctrines of mutually beneficial and interlocking relationships.
# Launching a massive Clean Rivers Programme with people’s participation.
# Pursuing friendly relations with neighbours and at the same time not hesitate from taking strong stand when required.
# Reviving the anti-terror mechanism which has been dismantled by the Congress and putting in place swift and fair trial of terror-related cases.
# Insulate intelligence agencies from political intervention and interference.
# Strengthening DRDO and encourage private sector participation including FDI in selected defence
# Strengthening physical infrastructure with expediting work on freight and industrial corridors.
# Setting up of gas grids and national optical fibre network upto the village level.
# Launching of diamond quadrilateral project of high-speed rail network (Bullet trains).
# Setting up of agri rail network catering to needs of perishable farm products.
# Launching of 50 new tourist circuits for the development of tourism.
# Universalisation of secondary school education and skill development and establishment of national e-library.
# Implementation of national education policy.UGC to be restructured and transformed into higher education commission.
# Ensuring urgent steps for safety of migrant workers and communities from Northeast and other states.
# Pursuing an agenda of equal and rapid development of all three regions of Jammu and Kashmir – Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.
# Return of Kashmiri Pandits to the land of their ancestors with full dignity and security.
# Evolving further the PPP model into a People-Public-Private Partnership (PPPP).
# Strengthening self-governance and empowering Panchayati Raj institutions with a devolution of functionaries and funds.
# Consolidating Gram Sabha institutions, involving people, in policy formation.
A five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court is hearing about the legality of Electoral Bonds. The bench is headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and comprises Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra. The matter relates to the Electoral Bonds scheme of 2018. It has been pandind in the Supreme Court almost from 2028, in spite of the petitionrs’ requests to expedite its hearing.
Supreme Court had decided on December 6 last year whether to refer the case of Electoral Bonds to a larger bench. The Court’s decision came while hearing a batch of petitions filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) in 2017 and the Communist Party Of India (Marxists) a year later, among others. They challenged Amendments to the Finanace Act, 2017, the Reserve Bank of India Act, the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) 2010, the Companies Act, the Income Tax Act, and the Represeantion of the People Act that facilitated the Electoral Bonds scheame. Their argument was that it undermined the right to know as well as the Election Commission of India guidelines on the political funding. Prof. Jagdeep S. Choker. co-founder of the ADR was dissatisfied with the progrss of the case since 2018.
The Electoral Bonds scheme, notified first time by the Union Government on January 2, 2018 was considered as a clever step towards emaciating the opposition parties. Neither would it lead to greater transparency in the funding of political parties (as claimed by Finance Minister late Arun Jaitley) nor would it check the flow of black money into the electoral process. Even Election Commission had expressed apprehensions at the move. It had even written to Government expressing apprehension.
The objection to the scheme mainly was that it might lead to the use of black money in electoral politics. In his keynote address at a conference of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), then Election Commissioner O P Rawat observed that ‘the recent amendments in the election and income tax laws make it clear that any donation received by a political party through an Electoral Bond has been taken out of the ambit of reporting in the Contribution Report which political parties have to submit to the EC. Implications of this step can be retrograde as far as transparency is concerned. Furthermore, where contributions received through Electoral Bonds are not reported, a perusal of contribution reports will not make it clear whether the party in question has taken any donations in violation of Section 298 of the Representation of the People Act, which prohibits political parties from taking donations from Government companies and foreign sources.’
Only the State Bank of India (SBI) can issue the Electoral Bonds in the denominations of Rs 1000, Rs 10,000, Rs one lakh, Rs ten lakh and Rs one crore. A total of 53 branches of SBI have been authorised to sell the Bonds – one branch in the capitals of all the States and Union Territories – more than one branch in some States. An individual or body can purchase these Bonds from the designated branches after fulfilling the KYC (Know Your Customer) requirements. However, the Bonds will not carry the name of the purchaser.
The byer can donate these Bonds to a political party which is registered with the Election Commission and has received not less than one per cent of the votes in the last Lok Sabha or Assembly election. The party can encash the Bonds only by depositing these in its bank, registered with Election Commission, within 15 days after the issuance of the Bond. If not deposited within 15 days, the amount of the Bond will go to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.
Election Commission had expressed the apprehension that abolition of relevant provisions of the Companies Act of removing a cap of 7.5 per cent of profit for political donations can lead to money laundering by setting up of shell companies for diverting funds for donations to political parties.
Why Modi is undefeatable!
Posted on: September 4, 2023
- In: Government | Politics | Society
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At 8-30 PM on January 18, 1977, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced over All India Radio – first in Hindi and then in English – that she had requested the President to dissolve the Lok Sabha and order elections, possibly in March. In her broadcast to the nation, she listed the gains of Emergency and said that the restrictions (imposed with the promulgation of Emergency on June 25, 1975) would be ‘relaxed’ to allow political parties to campaign. Two days later Minister of Information and Broadcasting V C Shukla announced the government’s decision not to enforce the censorship (on newspapers).
Though such a move by Indira Gandhi has been in the air for some time, the Opposition leaders were taken by surprise by the timing. Some of them were still in jails. They had launched an agitation against Indira Gandhi under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan. The agitation was intensified after the Allahabad High Court judgement in mid-June disqualifying Indira Gandhi. They were all put in jails with the announcement of Emergency.
On January 20, leaders of Congress (O), Jana Sangh, Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD) and Socialist Party (SP) took stock of the situation and agreed to contest the elections in the name of Janata Party. ‘The process of merger’, they decided, would continue ‘till after the elections’. It was a conglomeration of disparate parties, abhorrent of each other in normal times, but brought together by Indira Gandhi’s Emergency rule.
However, the people were not enthused to the extent the Opposition leaders were expecting. There were those who had seen the ‘gains’ of Emergency; some others were impressed by the leadership qualities of Indira Gandhi and favoured giving her another chance. A friend of mine, who was a fiery critic of Indira Gandhi and frequently brought me the banned literature during the Emergency, remarked that he had now nothing to say against Indira Gandhi and that he did not think the Opposition parties would be able to stay together even if they won the elections. Most important was the feeling of fear, generated among people by Indira/Sanjay Gandhi’s highhanded methods during the Emergency. Those who wanted to vote against Indira Gandhi’s Congress were apprehensive about being victimised if she came back to power. People did not discuss politics or elections in public places and talked to trusted friends only when no stranger was around.
Some change – though very minor, and that, too, among the educated class – was perceptible after January 28. Justice A N Ray had retired as Chief Justice of India on January 28 and M H Beg had succeeded him by superseding H R Khanna who was senior to Beg. In protest Justice Khanna had resigned. During the Emergency no judge would have taken such a risk. There was an impressive crowd at Ram Lila Grounds where Janata Party held its first election meeting on January 30. Chairman of Janata Party Morarji Desai presided, though the main attraction was Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Jagjivan Ram factor
Jagjivan Ram resigned from the cabinet and the Congress on February 2 and formed a new party called Congress For Democracy (CFD) along with Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna and Nandini Satpathy. That changed the atmosphere dramatically as it conveyed the message to the people that Indira Gandhi’s Congress was now a sinking ship. Janata Party’s meetings started swelling in contrast to the crowds in Congress meetings. Indira Gandhi inaugurated her party’s election campaign at Ram Lila Grounds on February 5. Originally it was to be inaugurated by Sanjay Gandhi but Jagjivan Ram’s resignation had obviously pushed him into the background. The meeting was thinly attended. Even those present were not in a mood to listen to Congress leaders. Indira Gandhi had to cut short her speech abruptly as the people were leaving. The next day the same Ram Lila Grounds was overflowing with people come to listen to Jayaprakash Narayan and Jagjivan ram. The BBC, in its 9-30 PM Hindi bulletin called it ominous for Mrs Gandhi. The rest is history.
Narendra Modi today is in the position in which Indira Gandhi was in January 1977. The difference is that he is more powerful than Indira Gandhi then was, more unscrupulous, more devoid of ethics and morality, more ruthless in misusing police agencies against his critics and more megalomaniac. He has a knack for manipulating elections the way Indira Gandhi could never do – even by getting inserted in voters’ lists fake voters in large numbers. In 2014, he was elected from Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency by a margin of 3, 71,784 votes over his nearest rival Arvind Kejriwal of AAP. When a routine revision of the voters’ lists was held by Election Commission in November 2014, over 6.47 lakh fake voters were detected in the lists.
The Opposition parties, the main pillars of a democracy, are in a worse shape than in 1977. They are more apprehensive of each other’s moves than trying to work out an effective strategy to check Modi’s authoritarianism. They need a Jayaprakash Narayan to unite them for a common cause and a Jagjivan ram to push Modi to the defensive. Both appear a distant dream as of today.
Thoughts At Random
Posted on: August 14, 2023
- In: Government | Judiciary | Religion | Uncategorized
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In University days I had three mottoes for me: walks at random; talks at random; and thoughts at random. The first two have gradually disappeared in my life and the third is totteringly still there. What appears below is part of that.
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Two dozen and odd political parties coming together in the name of INDIA seems to have upset Narendra Modi. Apart from putting his hounds against them, he publicly castigates them on all occasions.
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Pakistan’s outgoing Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Leader of Opposition Raja Riaz Ahmed agreed upon the name of Senator Anwarul Haq Kakar and gave it to the President for appointment as caretaker Prime Minister till the elections. India also needs some such arrangement.
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The Indian Constitution has three parts — all independent. If one part shows tendency of encroaching upon another part, there is remedy to stop it. After elaborate preparation, the virtual censorship included, the Government has now conquered two parts– executive fully and legislature almost. The most difficult is harnessing the judiciary and Modi is moving towards that.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi castigates non-BJP leaders from the precincts of Parliament House. Wish he had the moral courage to say all those things from inside the House.
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Narendra Modi and Amit Shah leave no opportunity of reminding the people that leaders of non-BJP parties are corrupt. What about BJP? The moment the “most corrupt” person joins the BJP, he becomes non-corrupt and may be even made Deputy CM of a State?
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The most dangerous piece of legislation enacted by Independent India is the ‘Inter-Services Organisation(Command, Control and Discipline) Bill 2023’. Read with other steps taken so far, it enables the Defence Minister (read Prime Minister) to take over the country’s control with the help of Armed Forces.
The following is part of former Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satyapal Malik’s interview to Week
The interviewer asked how thousands of CRPF jawans in Pulwama could be allowed to travel by road in a huge convoy (78 vehicles) and thereby become sitting targets. In his detailed response and in reply to subsequent questions on the same topic, Malik made three points that should be considered immensely significant from the perspective of national security. These can be summarized as follows:
A. The CRPF had asked for five aircraft for ferrying the soldiers. This was refused by the home ministry, then under Rajnath Singh.
B. When Malik told PM Modi and NSA Doval that the attack was possible because of ‘our fault’, and could be avoided if the aircraft were given, both the PM and the NSA asked him to keep quiet. (PM said, “Tum abhi chup raho”).
C. The source of the explosive was Pakistan, but it was a massive failure of the administration and the country’s intelligence setup that a car laden with a huge amount of explosives roaming in the streets of Kashmir for 10-12 days could not be located.
Whether they are true or false, credible or absurd, the claims made by Malik, who was the constitutional head of the state when the attack took place and governor of four states in total between 2017 and 2022, are undeniably significant from the perspective of national security
The readers should note that on April 8, that is a week before the Karan Thapar interview, Malik appeared in an interview with broadcast journalist Prashant Tandon where he made similar allegations.
- In: Government | Memoir
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India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru visited Japan in the early fifties. There he saw, among other things, men and women sweeping public places standing with a man-sized broom. He was fascinated and made more queries about that. At that time, no one in India had heard of a man-sized broom. Women (and men) at that time used to sweep the roads and other public places in a sitting position that put much stress on the person and made them unable to do the job after some years.
Nehru used to write a monthly letter to chief ministers discussing what was important at that time. In the letter he wrote after his return from Japan, he drew the attention of the chief ministers towards sweeping the places in a standing position with man-sized brooms as they did in Japan. This will save the women (and men) from backache and aging early. Sweeping public places (and private homes also) with man-sized brooms in a standing position became popular in India from that time.
Nehru’s interests ranged from small things affecting the people to big projects. In 1958 a girl studying in class 8 in Kanpur was kidnapped, putting her parents to agony. Her kidnappers, belonging to an inter-state gang of women/girls’ sale, took her to Punjab and lodged her in a ‘safe house’ in a village in Sangrur district, along with some other girls. Her kidnappers waited for the heat to subside before the girl, along with other girls, was put to sale. With the help of a sympathetic ‘dai’, who
was appointed to keep an eye on the girls, she wrote to ‘Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, New Delhi’, describing in brief her and other girls’ condition. Nehru, with his notings, sent the letter to Punjab chief minister, Sardar Partap Singh Kairon. The chief minister, without wasting time, constituted a team of ace policemen and sent them to the village. He did not trust the local police as he feared that they may be in league with the kidnappers. In a swift operation, the girls were rescued.
Nehru’s love for youth was legendary. He started the youth festival, in which young boys and girls from universities all over India, came with various programmes and thus received outlets for their talents. The first youth festival was held at (then) Mysore in 1958. The last youth festival was held at Talkatora Garden in New Delhi. In the latter, Nehru spent some time almost daily, talking to the participants about their curricula, interets, aims in their lives and cutting jokes with them. Before the youth festival was over, Nehru invited all the participants to his Teen Murti house and had photographs with each coninget separately. That was the last youth festival. After Nehru’s death, no youth festival was held.
These are little known facts of Nehru’s life. Much has been written about how he brought India into the modern times through a difficult period.
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