by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Terming Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman the “Rafale Minister”, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday demanded her resignation after former HAL chief T. Suvarna Raju refuted her claims that the state-owned aerospace and defence company did not have the capability to build the fighter jets.
“The RM (Rafale Minister) tasked with defending corruption has been caught lying again. The former HAL chief, T.S. Raju, has nailed her lie, that HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) didn’t have the capability to build the Rafale,” Gandhi said.
“Her position is untenable and she must resign” he said.
Gandhi’s comment came amid a war of words between the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and the Congress, after Sitharaman during an interview to a news channel claimed that the Bengaluru headquartered company governed under the management of the Indian Ministry of Defence was not competent enough to produce the aircraft.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, News, Politics
New Delhi : The Bharat Bandh called by the Congress and Left on Monday against rising fuel prices and tumbling rupee evoked mixed response in the country as the opposition closed its ranks against the Modi government. The BJP dubbed the protest a failure.
The day-long shutdown affected normal life in Odisha, Karnataka, Bihar, Kerala and Tripura and triggered a mixed response in Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
But it was mostly ineffective in Mamata Banerjee-ruled West Bengal.
Shutdown enforcers resorted to blocking roads and rail tracks disrupting traffic in several parts of the country. In Bihar, a critically ill two-year-old girl died on her way to a hospital in Jehanabad town apparently due to a road blockade.
Bandh supporters allegedly resorted to violence and clashed with the police in some parts areas, prompting the ruling BJP, which dubbed the shutdown a “complete failure”, of accusing the Congress of creating an “environment of fear” by violently enforcing the shutdown.
Normal life was paralysed in Odisha with vehicular movement and train services thrown out of gear as Congress workers blocked roads and trains. Hundreds of Congress activists were arrested. The Railways cancelled 12 trains while schools and colleges were closed.
Normal life was hit in Bihar with the shutdown supported by the Rashtryia Janata Dal (RJD), Left, Hindustani Awam Morcha and Jan Adhikar Party of Pappu Yadav.
Hundreds of Congress and other opposition parties leaders and workers took to the streets. Shutdown supporters blocked national and state highways, disrupted rail and road traffic for hours and stranding thousands of passengers.
Demonstrators clashed with police in several places while dozens of vehicles in Patna were damaged.
In Karnataka, normal life was affected as public transport kept off the roads across the state. Schools and colleges were closed although state and central government offices remained open. Global software firms like Infosys and Wipro functioned normally.
Life was thrown out of gear in BJP-ruled Tripura with most markets, shops and business establishments closed and private and passenger vehicles off the roads. Government offices and some banks were open but employee attendance was low.
But the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed that Bandh was a failure in Tripura.
BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh saw stray incidents of protests. The response was mixed in Jharkhand, with few shops closed and long route buses not plying.
In flood-ravaged Left-ruled Kerala, public vehicles went off the roads but private vehicles plied in many places. Shops, markets and establishments were shut.
In Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, bus services were affected and many private educational institutions remained closed.
There was a mixed response in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat, where a large number of educational institutions were shut while many vehicles remain off the roads.
In Maharashtra, the shutdown elicited mixed response in urban centres but secured widespread support in the semi-urban and rural hinterland which have been severely hit by the fuel prices and its cascading effects.
In Mumbai and other cities, large numbers took to the streets, railway stations, bus depots, and other public places. But suburban trains, BEST buses, schools and colleges functioned normally. Shops and commercial establishments downed shutters in many localities.
The shutdown was mostly ineffective in West Bengal. Banks, educational institutions in Kolkata were mostly open while trading activities in the city were more or less normal.
The ruling Trinamool Congress supported the issues on which the shutdown was called but opposed the strike in line with its stated anti-strike policy.
Meanwhile, in the national capital, Congress President Rahul Gandhi led the opposition’s show of strength, staging a foot march in support of the Bharat Bandh from Rajghat to Ramlila Maidan in the heart of the city.
The rally drew leaders of the Janata Dal-Secular, Trinamool Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Nationalist Congress Party, Loktantrik Janata Dal, Rashtriya Lok Dal, All India United Democratic Front, Revolutionary Socialist Party and Aam Aadmi Party. Also in attendance were former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
Manmohan Singh hit out at the BJP for “miserably” failing to control fuel prices.
Rahul Gandhi flayed Modi for his stoic silence over rising fuel prices, tumbling rupee, Rafale fighter jet deal and agrarian distress in the country.
The Left parties took out a separate rally in the national capital.
Meanwhile, the BJP said the hike in fuel prices was a “momentary difficulty” and claimed the shutdown was a complete failure.
“Bharat Bandh has been unsuccessful. We condemn the violence being used to instil fear among citizens across the country,” Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions, Politics
By Amulya Ganguli,
If Rahul Gandhi participates in the meeting called by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to discuss the country’s future, he can take the opportunity to seek clarifications on the organisation’s worldview. The replies by the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, to the Congress president’s questions cannot but have an impact on the outfit’s future in case a clear picture emerges about its attitude towards the various communities.
For instance, did K.B. Hedgewar, who founded the RSS in 1925, call the Muslims “yavan-snakes”? If so, is this still the view of the organisation or has there been a change? A related question can be on Hedgewar’s successor, M.S. Golwalkar’s categorisation of the Muslims as “Internal Enemies No.1”.
It is possible to link these uncharitable assessments of India’s largest minority community to V.D. Savarkar’s thesis that the only true sons of the soil are the Hindus since India is both their “pitribhu” (fatherland) and “punyabhu” (holy land).
In contrast, such organic and emotive connections cannot be ascribed to the minorities whose pitribhu may be India, but their punyabhu is in Makkah or Rome. It is presumably because of this reason that Golwalkar described Christians as “Internal Enemies No.2”.
At one stroke, the two Maharashtrian Brahmins had relegated the Muslims and Christians to the status of being “aliens” because of their religious affiliations to foreign lands. It goes without saying that this perception persists among the rank and file of the saffron brotherhood to whom the patriotism of these two communities are forever in doubt.
Hence, the observation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP, Vinay Katiyar, that Muslims have no place in India because their natural “homes” are Pakistan and Bangladesh, while another BJP MP, Roopa Ganguly, has said that West Bengal’s partition in 1947 meant that only Hindus would live in the state and that the Muslims should go to East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh. If both these statements deny legitimacy to the Muslim citizens of India, the reason can be traced to Savarkar’s views.
It is obvious that the RSS cannot claim to be abiding by the Indian Constitution if it subscribes to such opinions. Yet, disowning the two Hindutva luminaries will cut the ground from under its feet because these beliefs constitute the core of its philosophy.
At a time, however, when the RSS is reaching out to eminent people outside its fold, it cannot be long before some among the invited guests question the basis of the organisation’s belief system. Otherwise, it will seem that they have all been taken for a ride.
Up until now, the RSS has been cautious in its outreach. The most prominent among those (apart from A.P.J. Abdul Kalam who was the BJP’s choice for the President) who have been called to deliver a lecture to the RSS cadres is former President Pranab Mukherjee. Ratan Tata was next, but he chose not to speak.
Reports that the RSS is now thinking of inviting Rahul Gandhi and the communist leader, Sitaram Yechury, suggest that it is gaining in confidence about the exposure to diverse and contrary views. It is also considering holding “vaicharik kumbh” sessions with intellectuals in various cities with non-RSS individuals.
Perhaps the interaction with Pranab Mukherjee has told the RSS that it can successfully conduct its programme of interactions. There is little doubt that the former President hedged his bets while speaking in Nagpur lest his hosts be offended.
For instance, while ranging over Indian history, he made no mention of the Indus Valley Civilisation, presumably because it would have raised questions about whether it was Aryan, as the Hindutva group claims, or pre-Aryan which is the generally accepted view.
Similarly, he skipped over the entire Muslim period after referring to the Muslims as “invaders”, which would have gladdened saffron hearts, and made no mention of Akbar, whose title of “the Great” given by “secular” historians is contested by the present dispensation.
It will not serve any purpose, either for the RSS or its opponents, if everyone plays safe to keep the hosts in good humour. Instead, a reference will be perfectly in order by a guest to Hedgewar, who warned “others” not to “infringe on the rights of Hindus” since they must remember that “they are living in Hindusthan of Hindus”, and to Golwalkar and Savarkar.
The latest initiatives of the RSS are obviously intended to secure acceptance among a wider section of hoi polloi by demonstrating that it is not quite the ogre that its critics allege. But as in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s case, the flaunting of a gentler, kinder face may be construed as a mask unless the RSS formally dissociates itself from the anti-minority observations of its guiding lights like Hedgewar, Golwalkar and Savarkar.
There have been several occasions in history where a party has initiated major changes in its outlook. One of these was the British Labour Party’s decision to drop Clause IV of its constitution calling for the “common ownership” of the means of production. The communists, too, have done away with the concept of a dictatorship of the proletariat. Will the RSS follow suit by amending its basic ideology ?
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Opinions, Politics
By Naresh Kaushik,
Taking a leaf out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s book, Congress President Rahul Gandhi used his Europe tour to reach out to non-resident Indians, or NRIs — a group largely known to support Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in recent years. Throughout the tour, he targeted Modi for his style and policies, bitterly attacked the BJP and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and tried to project him and the Congress party as a better alternative.
Gandhi comes from a family where access is carefully controlled and only a select few are allowed to reach its members. But in London, he gave the impression that he’s accessible to the common man. He even mingled with the guests at his gatherings and shook their hands.
Speaking to journalists on Saturday (August 25), he mocked Modi for not talking to them openly. He accused the Prime Minister of not having the courage to answer reporters’ questions. This was a reminder of Modi’s public event in London in April, where he was accused of taking pre-planned and selected questions from the audience and not addressing even a single press conference. But one has to remember that Modi was also accessible to the media before he became Prime Minister. The question is, will Gandhi attend such open events and answer unscripted questions if he ever becomes the Prime Minister of India?
But still, this was a new Rahul Gandhi in London — more mature, aggressive, confident and ready to challenge his rivals. His sustained attacks on Modi, the BJP and the RSS were deliberate and sounded like part of a well-planned theme. It’s clear that he wanted to provoke the ruling party in India in order to set an agenda for debate. By comparing the RSS with Muslim Brotherhood, he wanted to plant a doubt in the minds of the Hindu right-wing organisation’s new supporters in India. This was also an attempt to drive away some voters from the BJP.
By targeting Modi and raising the issue of the alleged threat to India’s institutions under his government, Gandhi was trying to become the darling of the intelligentsia that supported the BJP in 2014. By praising Sushma Swaraj, who he’s bitterly criticised in the past, and attacking Modi for isolating her, Gandhi sought to create a wedge in the cabinet and was trying to impress upon the audience that he favoured an inclusive government where individual ministers were as important as the Prime Minister.
But we all know that Modi’S style of functioning is very similar to Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother, Indira Gandhi. And it’s a fact that in present-day India, leaders of all political parties act like dictators and once in government they rarely allow individual ministers to have an independent voice.
In Europe, Rahul Gandhi cleverly avoided talking about his own ambitions of becoming Prime Minister. He didn’t want other opposition leaders to stop dreaming about that ambition and thus jeopardise their support for an anti-BJP front during next year’s elections. It also went with his theme of projecting himself as a consensus politician.
He fumbled at the press meet earlier when he seemed to agree with Pakistan’s position that the main problem currently between the two countries was that India didn’t want to talk. But later, in answer to a direct question about Imran Khan’s election, he made it clear that relations with Pakistan couldn’t improve as long as institutions like the ISI continued to export violence to India.
The Congress president rightly focussed on the unemployment issue and was honest in saying that most countries are facing that problem and don’t know how to tackle it. He wanted India to follow China where he said small and medium industries had resulted in large-scale industrialisation and massive job creation. But he should know that a democratic India can’t be compared to a totalitarian China. In India, no government can take a decision without attracting scrutiny by the opposition and the media.
But where Rahul Gandhi didn’t come out really clever and mature is when he said that the Congress party was not responsible for the massacre of Sikhs after the assassination of his grandmother in 1984. For the second day in London, he failed to correct himself that members of his party were not only responsible but some of them led mobs to kill Sikhs. Although later his party didn’t give them tickets for parliament and state assemblies, they were never expelled.
Gandhi’s explanation that he condemned all violence and wanted the guilty to be punished, is similar to Modi and BJP leaders saying that they condemned all violence, including those by cow vigilantes, and wanted the perpetrators to be brought to justice. All of a sudden, just months before the general election, Gandhi, has given the BJP and the Akali Dal a major political issue. As Sikhs are in large numbers among the NRIs, he has only managed to provoke their anger against the Congress party.
Gandhi still has a long way to go. He still appears to lack new ideas and the political acumen required to take on Modi. But his Europe tour suggests Modi and the BJP will have to take him seriously. The man they dismissed as “Pappu” for a long time appears to have emerged as a tough challenger.
(Naresh Kaushik is a senior journalist based in London. He can be contacted at uknaresh@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
London : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said his party has not stonewalled the Triple Talaq Bill anywhere but they have an issue with the aspect of criminalisation.
“We have not stonewalled anything. But we have an issue with the criminlisation aspect,” Gandhi said during his interaction with the Indian Journalists’ Association here.
The Triple Talaq Bill was passed in Lok Sabha but is yet to be passed in the Rajya Sabha where the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi lacks majority.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has blamed the Congress for not allowing the bill to be passed in the Upper House.
—IANS
