PM Narendra Modi is expected to make the most of his stay to the African continent.

Stakes are high as Prime Minister Narendra Modi began his five day three-nation tour of Africa on Monday. The visit comes at a time when there is a decline in trade and investment in the continent not to mention years of diplomatic neglect of Africa and its absence from the foreign policy matrix. The past decade, however, has seen Chinese presence in Africa expand exponentially as Beijing cast its net wide looking for energy security and strategic depth. This has, fortunately, compelled India to facilitate a comprehensive engagement with the continent and also enter into its fourth phase of friendship with Africa, the first India-Africa Forum Summit having taken place from April 4 to April 8, 2008, in New Delhi. Despite such unprecedented diplomatic outreach and high-level visits to Africa, India’s contribution as well as interest in Africa’s growth has failed to keep pace with intent and declined with time. China, our biggest competitor on the continent, makes India’s economic presence in Africa look miniscule. The figures are revealing: Chinese investments increased from 2011-12, when its investment levels were equivalent to India’s at $16 billion, to a massive $40 billion in 2016-17.

In terms of defence and security ties too, China is way ahead of India. According to the Stockholm Institute of Peace Research, China’s export of arms and ammunition to Africa increased to 55 per cent in a period of four years (2013-2017). China also boasts of an exponential growth in arms import to sub-Saharan Africa, which is up to 27 per cent from 16 per cent over the past four years. And our bleeding hearts diplomats must take some responsibility for India lagging behind in forging a deep defence and military relationship with various African nations. Perhaps nothing exemplifies how ahead of the game Beijing is when compared to New Delhi than the factoid that China has virtually gifted Rwanda, the Prime Minister’s first port of call during his African sojourn, a military training centre and provided tech support for an Artificial Intelligence based security platform. We have a lot of catching up to do; the Prime Minister’s visit, despite the memes it has spawned on social media, is essential. We hope something substantive comes of it. Africa is an aspirational continent with a young population and huge scope for development. India needs to sustain its engagement with Africa and set itself the aim of emerging as its economic, security and cultural partner so it can be a part of the African growth story even as expands its global strategic footprint.

Writer: Pioneer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The power of Brexiteers’ lie in their threat to have the ability to stage a revolt that fatally splits the Conservative Party, overthrows May, and precipitates an early election.

Even with Donald Trump scheduled for a brief visit to the United Kingdom this week amid massive protests, it’s still ‘all Brexit, all of the time’ in the sceptred isle — and the long struggle over the nature of the deal that will define Britain’s relationship with the European Union post-exit allegedly reached a turning point last weekend.

“They had nothing else to offer. They had no Plan B. She faced them down,” said a senior Government official about the hard-line Brexiteers after Prime Minister Theresa May got them to sign up a so-called ‘soft Brexit’ at a crisis Cabinet meeting last Friday. But the armistice between the ‘Leave’ and ‘Remain’ factions in her fractious Conservative Party lasted less than 48 hours. On the morning of July 8, hard-line Brexiteer David Davis, the ludicrously titled Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, reneged on his short-lived support for May’s negotiating goals and resigned in protest. Then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson followed suit, claiming that May’s plan meant “the (Brexit) dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.”

The sheer fecklessness of the ‘Brexit dream’ is epitomised by Johnson, who first compared May’s negotiating plans to “polishing a turd”, then came round to supporting them for about 36 hours, and finally resigned, saying that they would reduce the UK to a “vassal state” with the “status of a colony” of the EU. Yet at no point in the discussion did either of them offer a coherent counter-proposal.

And what is all this Sturm und Drang about? A negotiating position, devised by May with great difficulty two years after the referendum that yielded 52 per cent support for an undefined ‘Brexit’, which could never be accepted by the European Union. Its sole virtue was that it seemed possible to unite the ‘Leave’ and ‘Remain’ factions of the Conservative Party behind it. But the unity imposed by May broke down before the weekend was over.

All four of the great offices of the state — Prime Minister, Chancellor (Finance Minister), Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary (Interior Minister) — are now held by Conservative politicians who voted Remain in the referendum. Yet they are unable to persuade their party to accept even a ‘soft Brexit’ that preserves Britain’s existing access to its biggest trading partner, the EU.

The Brexiteers’ power lies in their implicit threat to stage a revolt that overthrows May, fatally splits the Conservative Party, and precipitates an early election that brings the Labour Party to power. They may not really have the numbers to do that — it’s widely assumed that a majority of the Conservative members of Parliament secretly want a very soft Brexit or no Brexit at all — but May dares not test that assumption.

So, horrified by the prospect of a Labour Government led by Jeremy Corbyn (who is regularly portrayed by the Right-wing media as a Lenin in waiting), the Conservatives are doomed to cling desperately to power even though they can probably never deliver a successful Brexit. And the time is running out. The United Kingdom will be leaving the European Union on March 29 next year, whether there is a deal that maintains most of its current trade with the EU or not. In practice, the deadline for an agreement is next October, since time must be allowed for 27 other EU members to ratify the deal. If there is no deal, the UK simply ‘crashes out’, and chaos ensues. The volume of trade in goods and services between the United Kingdom and the rest of the EU is so great, and the preparation for documenting the safety and origins of goods and collecting customs on them so scanty, that the new border would simply freeze up.

That would cause great difficulty for many European enterprises, but for Britain it would be a catastrophe. As an example, two-fifth of the components for cars built in the UK are sourced from elsewhere in the EU. Yet most of the time available for negotiating a soft Brexit has already been wasted, and Britain still does not have a realistic negotiating position. This preposterous situation is almost entirely due to the civil war within the Conservative Party between the Brexit faction the rest. The only reason that there was a referendum at all was because former Prime Minister David Cameron thought that a decisive defeat in a referendum would shut the Brexiteers up and end that war. He miscalculated.

The Brexiteers spun a fantasy of an oppressive EU that was the cause of all Britain’s troubles and sold it to the nostalgic older generation, the unemployed and underemployed who were looking for somebody to blame, and sundry nationalists of all colours. They narrowly won the referendum with the help of a rabidly nationalist Right-wing Press, spending well beyond the legal limits in the campaign – and, it now appears, with considerable support from Russia. (The biggest contributor to the Brexit campaign, mega-rich investor Arron Banks, met the Russian ambassador at least 11 times during the run-up to the referendum and the subsequent two months). There’s still a chance that reason will prevail before the UK crashes out of the EU, of course. But the odds are no better than even.

(The writer is an independent journalist)

Writer: Gwynne Dyer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The Bihar government finally wakes up to the fact that prohibitions don’t work like in the past. What is required is greater awareness.

While there is no doubt that the social realities in Bihar much like in other parts of India are such that consumption of alcohol invariably leads to domestic abuse, neglect of children, and self-inflicted penury in a large number of homes, the panacea is not prohibition but awareness. That is the lesson from the world over which the Bihar State Government under Nitish Kumar has now part-learnt, at least to the extent of realising the rampant misuse of the stringent prohibition laws in the State and proposing some dilution (pun unintended) of the harshest. History is replete with examples of the failure of prohibition in India – of the nine States that have given it a go not many have stood the test of time. For instance, Mizoram revoked its prohibition laws after 18 years as the ban led to the spread of bootlegging and caused a huge loss of revenue to the State. Gujarat has had prohibition on the statute longest, given it is Mahatma Gandhi’s birthplace, but easy availability and even home delivery of the tipple of your choice is the State’s worst-kept secret.

In the case of Bihar, though prohibition was an election promise made by Nitish Kumar after thousands of women demanded it, the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016, is draconian. The most egregious penalty was that it provided for the arrest of all adult members of a family in case liquor was found stored in their house and if found guilty all would be imprisoned for a minimum of 10 years extendable to a life term. Besides, first-time ‘offenders’ were sent to jail and authorities had the power to confiscate their property in case of repeated offences. Thankfully, common sense has prevailed after two years of the miscarriages of justice as a result of the imposition of this law replete with false cases. Sensing the many drawbacks in the implementation of prohibition which has caused a massive dip in revenue and given birth to a booze mafia which smuggles in alcohol from neighbouring States, the Government it is in the process of amending some laws in the upcoming Monsoon Session of the Bihar Assembly. Improving public health should be the aim of any Government and if an adult exercising his/her individual freedom of choice chooses to drink then the smart response would be to earmark revenues that accrue to the exchequer from the sale of alcohol to such initiatives including de-addiction centres.

Writer: Pioneer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Political parties including the the Congress and Communist Party took exception to the fact that Amit Shah came to Kolkata and spoke on Bankim.

BJP president Amit Shah delivered the first Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay Memorial Oration, instituted by the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, in Kolkata on June 27.  2018 being the 180th birth anniversary year of the Rishi — the Sage, who as Sri Aurobindo wrote in his opuscule on Bankim, ‘was a seer and nation-builder’, the programme took on a symbolic dimension. Those who came to listen to Shah did so from across the State. It was not a Kolkata-centric event with a metro audience. Young academics and intellectuals from across West Bengal, from district colleges and educational institutions and from State universities had congregated to listen to Shah speak on Bankim and Vande Mataram —his immortal ode to Bharat Mata.

A large number of leading intellectuals and educationists had also come to listen to Shah and share the stage with him; notable among them was Bankim’s foremost Bengali biographer Amitrasudan Bhattacharya and the legendary modern Bengali writer Buddhadeb Guha.

Despite various roadblocks created by elements within the administrative and political establishment of the State, people thronged the venue and the programme succeeded in generating discussion for weeks after the event. Displaying stark opportunism, just two days before Shah’s address, the Mamata Banerjee administration announced a three-day Bankim Chandra festival — a first in seven decades of West Bengal’s existence as a State, while a day after the Oration, the State Government announced it was instituting a Chair in the name of Bankim at the University of Calcutta — again for the first time in seven decades.

In fact, the only time that Mamata Banerjee garlanded Bankim’s photo was just after she had taken over as Chief Minister in 2011. Since then, until 2018, she had desisted from alluding to his contribution and had refrained from even garlanding his portrait. Yet, her party and few of her appendage intellectuals project her as the leader of Bengalis and the party as a party of Bengalis and of Bengal and pay obeisance to her as the ‘premier’ of Bengal! In all this feigned Bengaliness, somehow Bankim went missing and was plastered over due to the false demands and exigencies of the politics of appeasement.

The Congress that ruled West Bengal for three decades after Independence did not think of paying tribute to Bankim through erecting appropriate institutions or memorials recognising his contribution.

During the Marxist phase, Bankim was relegated to the margins, projected as a communal thinker whose words and call for India’s liberation needed to be decimated or at least diluted from the public and intellectual discourse of the State.The Communists and their intellectuals, whose political fountainhead Muzaffar Ahmed (Kaka babu), displaying shallow intellectualism, found Bankim’s Anandamath ‘full of communal hatred from the beginning to the end’ began generating a narrative that Left-leaning intellectuals had refused to attend to Shah’s speech despite being invited.

The likes of Manoj Mitra, Bibhas Chakraborty, Rudraprasad Sengupta, Chandan Sen — all so-called pillars of the Left intellectual movement in Bengal — posed as if they were invited but refused the invitation to Shah’s event! On the contrary, these intellectuals were never reached out to and were not invited to the programme. In their desperation to appear relevant in the mainstream of intellectual discourse, they pretended to have rejected an invite that they had never received in the first place.

The Congress, Communists and a lone intellectual in the Trinamool Congress — an intellectual in the midst of lumpens — Sugata Bose, had actually taken umbrage at the fact that Shah had dared to come to Kolkata and to speak on Bankim, a figure that they have tried, for decades, to marginalise and to eradicate from the Bengali psyche. They behaved as if Bankim was their personal property over whose life and legacy they had sole control and authority over.

Ironically, it was this same Congress party in the opposition in Bengal in 1983, which had moved a resolution in the State Assembly demanding that the government ‘adopt measures to propagate the novel Anandamath’. The greater irony was that the ruling Left Front refused to vote against the motion, while cries of  Vande Mataram rent the Assembly. It is a history that the Congress of today would like to forget, because it is a Congress that has become increasingly de-nationalised, de-ideologised and de-linked from the ethos of India.

The inquisitiveness among the people at large was very encouraging; first, they wanted to hear Amit Shah who was speaking on a topic which was not the usual political-type subject and secondly because the oration was on Bankim. It was perhaps for the first time that Bankim Chandra’s birth anniversary was being observed through such a grand programme in the city. The programme was not a political programme; the venue, the famed GD Birla Sabhaghar was not a political forum; and the topic was an ideational, ideological and cultural issue aimed at the psyche and soul of Bengal. Shah that evening spoke from the heart, he referred to Bankim as the father of modern cultural nationalism, spoke of how Bengal through Chaitanya Mahabprabhu, Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Bankim and Sri Aurobindo had been the fountain of cultural nationalism and how that heritage, that past, needed to be revisited.

Shah spoke of India as a geo-cultural rather than a geo-political entity and argued that it was Bankim who, describing India as the Mother, had put his seal on this vision of Bharat as a geo-cultural and spiritual entity.

The discourse had been taken to an altogether new level in which the political was subsumed to the inspirational, ideational and philosophical dimension. His most poignant and hard-hitting point was that the fragmentation of  Vande Mataram in 1937, with Congress’s hesitation in singing it in its entirety, paved the way for the fragmentation of the country. That act of omission announced the era of appeasement politics, which eventually led to the Partition of India. It was an act of sacrilege, which tampered with the sacred spirit and dimension of India and her spiritual and cultural unity. These observations have struck a deep chord in the Bengali psyche, the Bengalis being a people most affected by the charade of the politics of appeasement. That act of fragmentation remains forever condemnable. Shah reminded us of that.

Writer: Anirban Ganguly

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Even though many political parties including the Congress had initially endorsed the idea of statehood for Delhi, the Congress finally wakes up to the fact that it is not possible.

The question of the feasibility of Delhi being granted the status of a fully-fledged State is in the news nowadays. When we won elections, we also wanted it to be a State and all three of our manifesto stated that we will try to make Delhi a State as did those of the other major parties, including the BJP. But to be honest what I realized is that Delhi cannot be a State like other States. That is because Delhi happens to be the capital of India. The capital of a country cannot be a State. So, that is the logic behind it.

Article 239AA gives Delhi a position of not a State but a Union Territory though with State-like features and as a territory of the Union the L-G here, who is appointed by the Central Government, has certain powers with him which the elected Government does not. These two powers are land and police (law and order). What developed over the years was a complete understanding between the State Government and the Lieutenant Governor. In my three terms as Chief Minister, including the first when the NDA was in power at the Centre, whenever the State we needed the police there was never an issue with deployment; indeed, ministers in the State Government are provided security/protection as required by Delhi Police. Similarly, when we needed land for a hospital or any other building for public welfare it was given to us without any jhagda or fuss.

On police specifically, there used to be a monthly meeting of the MLAs, MPs and the relevant police officers to discuss the problems of their particular areas. Law and order issues were discussed at these monthly meeting and when we asked questions we were given answers by police. Where land was concerned, if we needed to build universities and hospitals, we need land.

My experience was we always got the land except in Dwarka and even there we got land to build a hospital because there was no hospital in the area. We got land for the Institute for Liver and Biliary Sciences Hospital we established in Vasant Kunj, which is now rated among the top medical institutes of its kind in the world. The point is that in this kind of unique situation, the State Government and Lieutenant Governor must work in coordination. There is nothing really wrong with the Delhi situation. It’s a very well-governed city, which has everything that you want. It has people migrating to it. It has jobs galore.

The governance model has to be different because it’s the capital of the country. The entire diplomatic corps and international institutions are based here. They also have to be looked after and one can’t have anything going amiss there. Delhi Government per se has all the powers required to provide

effective governance. As for powers to transfer officials, all officers are broadly speaking equally good or bad; it depends on how you handle them and how much work you can get out of them. This is an issue that tends to get overstated.

I also feel the proposal mooted by some to keep New Delhi areas (those coming under New Delhi Municipal Council) in the current model and give the rest of Delhi the status of what is called a full-fledged State, is unworkable and impractical. Imagine a situation where a crime is committed in an NDMC area and the suspect and runs towards a ‘full State’ area; effective policing will be impossible. This is a fantasy someone has dreamed up.

Our current Chief Minister hasn’t done a proper job of governance, I’m afraid. Roads, flyovers and infrastructure has not been enhanced after the Congress Government was voted out. School buildings are dilapidated, our work has not been taken forward. After the Sonia Vihar water treatment plant set up by us which resolved the South and East Delhi water crisis and for which I must thank Ms Mayawati who was in power in Uttar Pradesh at the time, no water capacity has been added.

In sum, I find that the entire so-called full Statehood demand is nothing but a diversion. Colonies are in a mess, trees are being cut but the focus of Mr Arvind Kejriwal and his government is on what it terms the ‘obstructionist’ role of the Lieutenant Governor/Centre and the amount of time ‘wasted’ because of it. Well, at least they admit to having wasted over three years of their term. For example, the Aam Aadmi Party Government said it was going to buy a number of buses to augment the current fleet. But for the past two years there has not been a single new bus on the road. They have failed to buy a bus; what’s that got to do with obstructionism?

As for the demand for full Statehood for Delhi is concerned, I am of the firm view that the rules are in place, the regulations are in place and the division of powers are in place. The Supreme Court has only re-endorsed these and not come up with anything new. But it has emphasized the need for coordination and cooperation. The Court has made no changes in the subjects which come under the purview of the Centre; the rest remains with the State. So, the State needs to get on with providing good governance.

But the question for Mr Kejriwal remains: Did you not know the governance model and division of powers extant in Delhi before you came to power? If one takes on the responsibility of being the Chief Minister of Delhi, one must first understand the administrative and constitutional make-up of the place. Finding excuses because of one’s inability to do so is not correct. To sit on a dharna at the Lieutenant Governor’s residence, lying on a sofa with shoes off along with your ministerial colleagues is very undignified and does not behoove a Chief Minister. The point I’m making is that all these excuses not to do anything ring hollow. Melodrama is the right word for it. Just get on with the job. That’s all.

Writer:  Sheila Dixit

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Religious minorities in Afghanistan such as Hindus and Sikhs have been at the receiving end due to decades of internal conflict. International organisations’ failure to acknowledge their plight adds insult to injury.

India’s foreign policy has its task cut out — to ensure the safety of the Hindu-Sikh community within Afghanistan or its safe repatriation to India (or migration elsewhere) with full citizenship and rehabilitation. In a positive move, New Delhi has issued long-term visas to members of Afghanistan’s Sikh and Hindu communities and offered them the right to live in India without any limitation. India’s envoy to Afghanistan, Vinay Kumar, said that these Afghan citizens must take the final call. The Jalalabad bombing (July 1, 2018) has complicated matters for New Delhi and Kabul. India has given sustained support to successive Governments in Afghanistan (barring the Taliban that behaved shabbily during the Kandahar episode); Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invested personal capital in support of “Afghanistan’s multicultural fabric”. India has invested in many large development projects but growing insecurity has forced a slowdown. Seven Indian engineers kidnapped in May, in Baghlan Province, remain captive.

Some things are notable about the Jalalabad incident. First, Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility, though security agencies are yet to confirm this. IS fighters are fleeing Syria in droves under pressure from the Syrian Arab Army and need safe havens; Pakistan which has long desired to be leader of the Islamic world seems a natural destination. How IS coexists with other terrorist groups there remains to be seen but Nangarhar, where the attack occurred, borders Pakistan and is a terrorist stronghold despite sustained operations by Afghan commandos and American airstrikes.

Second, Avtar Singh Khalsa, an important Sikh community leader and among the 19 victims in a convoy of Hindus and Sikhs that was going to meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, may have been an intended target. He was planning to contest Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections in October and would have been elected unopposed to the Wolesi Jirga (Lower House) as the seat he was planning to contest was reserved for minorities by Presidential decree in 2016. The IS statement disparaged Hindus and Sikhs as “polytheists” and may have aimed at preventing even token political diversity in the nation.

Afghanistan’s Hindu-Sikh minority has lived under various strains for decades. The rich fled to India after the assassination of President Daoud in 1978. The assassination of President Najibullah in 1996 made life more difficult and a silent exodus began towards the West and India. In 2016, TOLOnews reported that 99 percent of Hindus and Sikhs had left Afghanistan in the past three decades. From 2,20,000 in the 1980s, their number shrank to 15,000 during the mujahideen era followed by the Taliban rule, and currently stands at barely 1,350. The television channel said that the main reasons for their flight were religious discrimination and official neglect. Under the mujahideen-Taliban, their lands and assets were seized by warlords, reducing them to penury. These were never restored after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Under the Taliban, Hindus and Sikhs wore yellow armbands and were not allowed to hold Government jobs. Even post-Taliban, bigoted neighbours harassed them while cremating their dead, children were bullied and could not attend schools and the community as a whole was made to feel like outsiders. The head of the Hindu Council in Afghanistan, told TOLOnews that he had lost 10 members of his family in the Afghan conflict; two brothers in the Army had died fighting the mujahideen. He said discrimination against the community began in 1992 “when people started counting who were Hindu or Muslim and Tajik, Uzbek or Hazara.” TOLOnews observed that Hindus and Sikhs once had thriving businesses in the country, but now faced increasing poverty. There are no Sikhs or Hindus in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces. Only two gurdwaras function, one each in Jalalabad and Kabul; most temples are deserted.

The timing was political. It came the day after the Government ordered Afghan security forces to resume offensive operations against the Taliban on expiry of the Government’s 18-day ceasefire that overlapped with the Taliban’s three-day ceasefire for Eid, which IS did not join. It coincided with the visit of US envoy Alice Wells, who came to pressure the Taliban to engage with Ashraf Ghani. The Taliban is demanding direct talks with the US, which Washington has refused. Wells said, “Right now it’s the Taliban leaders … who aren’t residing in Afghanistan, who are the obstacle to a negotiated political settlement”, and added that Islamabad had to do more to bring Taliban to the negotiating table.

The attack is a setback to the Afghan Government as it has forced the minorities to weigh the prospects of continued survival in that country. Tejvir Singh, secretary of a national panel of Hindus and Sikhs, told Reuters, “I am clear that we cannot live here anymore… We are Afghans. The Government recognises us but terrorists target us because we are not Muslims.” Sikhs who took shelter in the Indian consulate in Jalalabad added, “We are left with two choices: To leave for India or to convert to Islam”.  Some Sikhs, however, said that their ties with Afghanistan were too deep to contemplate leaving. The situation is grim. Hours before the Jalalabad bombing, terrorists set fire to a boys’ school in Khogyani district and beheaded three workers, a standard tactic of IS, which had threatened to attack schools in the area as revenge for the US-Afghan military operations. It had specifically stated that it would also attack schools with girl students. The Norwegian Refugee Council, which runs a programme for displaced students, noted that, “Afghan schools are increasingly at risk on military, ideological and political fault lines, with attacks increasing in eastern Afghanistan”.

In a heart-warming gesture on July 3, 2018, as members of the Shiromani Akali Dal and Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee protested against the attack outside the Afghanistan Embassy in Delhi, Afghan diplomats and officials joined the protests. Stating that Afghans were also victims of cross-border terrorism, they said Ambassador Shaida Abdali viewed the incident as “a shared pain” and the embassy “was obliged to protest together with the Afghan Sikhs residing in India who also found support from Sikh brothers of India”. The attack underlines the fragility of the regime in Kabul. The rogue elements in Pakistan cannot be controlled without joint and concerted action by the US, Russia, India and China.

Writer:  Sandhya Jain

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The world is transfixed by the ongoing rescue effort for the boys trapped in a cave in Thailand and their will to survive

Hardly does a story of human endeavour feature in the chaos and conflict of information and interpretation. Neither does faith find a place if it is not trawling trolls. That is why the cave rescue of the Thai boys — who were trapped by sudden rain and flooding in a subterranean chamber on an exploratory mission and who miraculously blipped up after 12 days of being mistaken as dead — is a life-positive story that the world is glued to moment to moment. Amid trade wars and conflicts, this is the hope story that everybody wants to be part of and contribute to, simply because these crises remind us what a chance at life means beyond our destructive potential. It has had dramatic peaks and troughs, the joy of discovery plummeted by the almost impossible nature of rescue. With rapidly receding hopes — last heard oxygen levels in the cave were dipping low and a fresh spell of rains predicted more flooding, threatening to gobble up the perch where the boys are — all nations are stretching every limb for what could be the greatest human endeavour of our time. The challenges are superhuman: The dive route is a serpentine, narrow-neck channel, five hours long where large oxygen tanks cannot be carried through. Ace divers have had to hack through boulders with limited air supply, one dying in the process. We do not know whether the untrained boys will be able to dive in perilously murky water that is filling up faster than being pumped out or whether rescue workers can drill an escape chute through the slippery and stubborn rocks overhead. But it is a chance that the world is ready to take. Football stars like Ronaldo are cheering them, the FIFA president has even invited them to watch the World Cup finals and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is doing everything possible to aid their extraction, innovating on an inflatable pod. India, too, is offering technical expertise in flushing out water through Kirloskar. Over 1,000 international experts are at it while keeping up the morale of the boys, who now have food to wait it out for four months, can talk to families through an optic fibre link and will have an air tube to stay in a bubble of sorts. But the can-do spirit ticks because of another epic rescue in 2010 when 33 Chilean miners trapped in a caved-in shaft were rescued after two months of persistent efforts. The hurdles were many — the main submergence was followed by a secondary slip-in, the first two shafts for sending down a capsule for evacuation failed, the third worked and the first capsule collapsed. Yet all 33 made it to the surface for a world exclusive moment that was freeze-framed by photographers and became the subject of a Hollywood film.

Will fate deal a cruel hand? If the boys could hold out 12 days of blackout, don’t they deserve a chance to get back in the land of the living? Perhaps it is a test of human will. More so of technology that needs to come out of the cloud and tame Nature’s wilful ways. Or perhaps it’s Nature’s way of telling us that there is no bigger battle than survival worth fighting for.

Write: The Pioneer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The government needs to be more proactive to bring a change in the present sexist and misogynist Indian social order. This will give a sense of security to women. As a society, it is time we set higher standards for ourselves.

Disheartening does not begin to describe the past two weeks. It has been a week where the Thomson Reuters Foundation came out with a perception report that ranked India as the world’s most dangerous country for women. This was also the week in which a young girl who had not even seen her tenth birthday was abducted and brutally raped in Madhya Pradesh. All of this has been interspersed with the now almost daily dose of disheartening news on some form of assault or violence against women. These however are just symptoms and we as a country must recognise that we have failed our women. It is therefore imperative to place a greater emphasis on ensuring that the women in our country irrespective of caste, colour, creed, religion or nationality feel that India is a country that not only respects women but also allows them to thrive.

This raises the important perceptional question of how the Government views women; and why we have to start demanding better of our Government and ourselves. Not one to adopt a subtle approach or letting its actions speaks for itself, the BJP is unsurprisingly of the view that it has excelled in dealing with issues relating to women empowerment. Union Minister Smriti Irani, on International Women’s Day, wrote an opinion piece where she said: “The need for empowerment of women is an idea that everyone acknowledges as important. However, following up ideas and ideals with actions is of prime importance. In this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi leads the way.” But the question is whether the BJP really leads the way? To help answer this question, instead of getting distracted by catch phrases and keywords,we must examine what the Prime Minister and the BJP have actually done in relation to the issues of importance to women.

Thomas Reuters Foundation report and the reaction of the BJP: As I mentioned above, the report released by the Thomas Reuters Foundation ranked India as the world’s most dangerous country for women. There was some shock that this report ranked India to be worse for women than war-torn countries like Syria. A large part of this criticism came from the BJP where the report was received with cries of an “agenda” against India. This is all the more surprising given that the same people who criticized the report such as Amit Malviya, the head of the IT Cell of the BJP, and party MP Rajiv Chandrashekhar, relied on the same report in 2014. In my opinion, to focus on whether India stand fourth or first is missing the woods for the trees.

What cannot be debated is the fact that India is among the worst countries in the world for women and the BJP would do well to dispel that notion by reigning in trolls, focusing on women safety, encouraging discussions in schools about the importance of protecting women rather than talking up the idea that there is an “agenda” against India.

Attack of the trolls: If you have had a chance to see my twitter handle or go to my Facebook page, you will know that similar to millions of people on social media, trolls love to heckle, abuse and threaten me for the opinions I share on social media. As a former police officer, I have had to deal with a number of criminals, goons and dacoits but I must say that women on social media face threats and encounter abuse that would make these criminals, goons and dacoits recoil with disgust. While social media has been present for some time now, the sheer volume of abuse suffered and the vitriolic, sexist messages against women have increased manifold. A clear example of this was the manner in which a number of such trolls have been attacking our Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj. It is significant to note that these trolls who threatened and abused Swaraj are “followed” by 41 BJP MPs and the Prime Minister himself follows eight such troll accounts. It was also telling that the Congress party condemned the attack on Swaraj before the BJP did and that the Prime Minister has maintained his silence on the issue. It is this kind of silence which the vicious trolling army takes as acquiescence even if that is not what is intended. When Irani said that the PM is leading the way, I am sure that this was not what she had in mind.

Casually inconsiderate: In addition to these specific issues, there is, in my view, a casual attitude towards women that emanates from the BJP. The obvious example of this attitude is the lack of fervor in any condemnation of the BJP MLA from Unnao, who is a rape-accused, or the BJP ministers who participated in a rally demanding a CBI probe into the Kathua rape-and-murder which was seen as supporting the accused. This lack of consideration by the BJP is also reflected on issues like GST slabs where sanitary napkins are taxed at 12 per cent.

In terms of the schemes that the Government has come out with to improve the status of women, there is a distinct feeling of disappointment at the lack of attention to actual implementation. The ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ (BBBP) is a clear example of this where the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) reports found a fall in the sex ratio at birth in various districts of Haryana and Punjab due to the lack of policy implementation, diversion of funds and a weak monitory mechanism. While the BJP says the BBBP is a visionary scheme to improve the status of women, the report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development found that out of a total amount of Rs 43 crore that was set aside for BBBP in the fiscal year 2016-2017, only five crore rupees has been correctly utilised.

Unfortunately, as history has shown, it is unlikely that the BJP will pay heed to any of these warnings. It is just as likely that the Prime Minister will continue to remain silent on these pressing issues. Irani rightly said that, “The nation will benefit from women’s qualities like excellent management abilities, communication skills, ability to multitask. It will also give a more caring and compassionate edge to the often impersonal realm of governance.” However, the manner in which women’s rights have been set back over the past few years suggests that India too could do with a Government that tries to incorporate these values.

Writer:  Ajoy Kumar

Courtesy: The Pioneer

A public art project by Leena Kejriwal and Change.org asks a startling question about human trafficking.

Giant  black cutouts, all approximately 13 ft high, each representing an unknown girl from some remote part of India who has been trafficked for human consumption, are propped up against a bright afternoon sky at CP. They are faceless, nameless, expressionless, posing the silent question, “Where have they gone missing? Who has them now?”

“To me, it is not the black silhouette of a girl. It looks as if the sky has been cut out and a black hole looks through it rather menacingly, drawing in all the missing girls and sucking them into oblivion. There is a sense of loss for the ones who have lost their personality, their choices, their voices and their freedom. With approximately 5,000 drawings across the country and the globe, we want each cutout to ask one question, ‘Where does the demand for a million girls who disappear every year, come from?’ And I want to use these public installations to shake and stir us   into corrective action,” says Leena Kejriwal, the mastermind behind The MISSING public art project for which she has collaborated with Change.org.

Talking about art as a means of activism, Kejriwal says, “People have used all kinds of media to engage with the public. I feel art has been underplayed in influencing people to take a stand or at least spark off a talking point.” And instead of focussing on the number of young girls that are lost to trafficking, this display asks the question, who have them, who is feeding the demand of the sex trade? Amogh Lux of  change.org, therefore, created the hashtag #ChokeTheDemand. “Trafficking is demand-driven. Small acts like forwarding a rape joke can have a devastating impact in perpetuating the idea of the commodification of girls and women. Our Missing murals have a chat box that ask you to chat with it,” says Kejriwal. The deafening silence on the other side seems to have had an impact. “According to our internal surveys, around 75 percent of men said they would stop watching porn if that leads to trafficking,” she tells us.

Amogh, a communication designer, says, “I want to be an advocate of creativity; people don’t know how to measure artworks as a solution but the kind of impact and engagement you get is extremely powerful and that is something I am interested in investigating.” The wall art is mainly to engage urban India but he is holding a number of workshops in rural sectors, educating girls about safety, security and the need to earn a  livelihood and equip oneself for it. Amogh explains how the chat boxes before the installations add a personal effect to the story of the victims. “For example, one of the murals in Kolkata explains that the cost of chicken is more than the cost of a girl. Now, if I tell you millions of girls disappear every year, you consider it a statistic. But the chicken-girl ratio hits you differently.”

Both Kejriwal and Amogh are trying hard to get a conversation going on breaking down patriarchal constructs, be it about gender roles, cultural values and societal customs. For example, they believe that talk about menstrual hygiene, though fragmented, is coalescing into a healthy dialogue on respecting otherness and   the female voice. “I would not say that girls need to be their own bodyguards. We need to build a society where taboos are not hard to speak about.”

Nida Hasan, campaign director at change.org,  says, “Kejriwal’s work speaks for itself. Trafficking has so far been talked about in terms of traffickers and number of girls being sold. We haven’t spoken about the customers,  wondered who are these people who are forcing even 11-year-old girls into the sex trade? Who are fuelling the demand for pornography, even child pornography?”

After working with the Women and Child Welfare ministry, Kejriwal has toured three districts and holding workshops on how to be a “smart girl” and not just a “good girl.”  Kejriwal’s reasoning is simple. “Why wait for a girl to get trafficked to save her? We are shaping her mind, trying to teach her about the many choices in life that will keep her away from coerced and feudal decisions. It is not about feminism, it is about creating awareness of equality. It is about changing a society that believes a girl has to behave in a certain way and live by a code. MISSING is only trying to tell you, ‘Hey, you are a human being with equal rights’ and slowly making the girls capable of thinking right. We are teaching them to be aware of their  actions, even acceptance, and where they can lead. It is about pinching a social fabric that’s trying to sweep everything under it.”

This project began with the Kolkata chapter, Hunt for the Lost Durga, in 2017 and will be carried forward to Mumbai and Hyderabad, after completing the Delhi chapter in Connaught Place, Malviya Nagar and Vasant Kunj.

Writer: Shilpi Seth

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Taking into consideration Trump’s orders to stop oil imports from Iran, India must craft its oil import policies carefully to protect its interests with Iran.

In another of many policy reversals of the previous administrations, US President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran that was signed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. The immediate impact of such a decision was that Iran was squeezed of foreign investment as investors, particularly the Europeans, are frightened to take the risks. Further, the Trump administration has issued a diktat that all oil imports from Iran, including that by India, must be stopped from November 4 and countries failing to meet this deadline shall face the prospect of US sanctions. India is unwilling to accept such a diktat. Iran, a regional power, is not only key to oil supplies to India but also its gateway to Eurasia and Afghanistan.

In May 2018, when Trump announced that US would withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the multilateral agreement constraining Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief, little was perceived about the consequences the decision would entail. Trump called the Iran deal “decaying and rotten” but did not offer any specifics of how he would replace it or how he would restrain Iran from rebuilding its nuclear infrastructure should it choose to do so. Trump’s main aim was to target Iran’s energy, petrochemical, and financial sectors, which effectively took the US out of the agreement. But the European stakeholders — including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson — sensed the fallout of such a decision and rushed to Washington urging Trump to remain in the deal, but to no avail. This was despite the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the organisation responsible for monitoring Iran’s compliance with the agreement, consistently found that it had abided by the deal since it entered into force in 2016.

What is most disturbing after the tension in the Korean Peninsula is Trump’s annulment of the nuclear deal with Iran signed by his predecessor in cooperation with other European allies. The US diktat to world companies to cut oil imports from Iran to zero by November 4 or face US sanctions is a new element in world diplomacy. This is worrying the European allies, who were part of the Iran nuclear deal. The US decision has already started adversely impacting some European companies. For example, French automaker Peugeot now has started viewing Iran as too risky a place to do business. For the US, the window between May 8 and November 4 deadline is the drawdown period when countries importing oil from Iran should start reducing immediately and bring to zero by November 4 deadline.

The move applies not only to Europe but also to India, China, and Turkey. Following this announcement, oil prices rose sharply, and depressed currencies of many countries (in India, rupee breached 69 a dollar mark), making imports of critical products more expensive. Iran is OPEC’s third largest oil producer, exporting two million barrels a day.

Britain, France, Germany, and the European Union as a whole strongly protested Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and vowed to protect their companies from “secondary sanctions”, which punish companies from other countries that engage in business with sanctioned sectors of the Iranian economy. The US, however, says that secondary sanctions are in place in Iran since 1996.

Trump seems to be needlessly interfering in Iran as his policy on the nuclear issue and sanctions have created domestic turmoil, leading to increasing street protests. The US State Department argues that “Iranians are basically fed up with the regime’s squandering of the nation’s wealth on not particularly productive or enriching ventures abroad”. While the rial collapsed in foreign exchange markets and the country’s economic woes worsened, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for unity to cope with the new challenge the nation faces now.

The US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, was in India and in her meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged on cutting oil imports, but was politely told that it would be difficult for India to make any significant cut. India shall be unwilling to bend under the US pressure, as its relations with Iran range from the energy trade to connectivity projects, particularly the development of Chabahar Port, and cutting trade between the two countries could hurt India’s long-term interests.

Given that the Indo-US ties have warmed, it is unclear if Trump will unilaterally impose sanctions on India if the latter does not cut oil imports from Iran or give some waiver. There is a view in some quarters in the policy-making circles in India that the US is not threatening India over purchase of crude oil from Tehran. The US is already aware that India had already cut down its oil intake from the Islamic Republic to 6 per cent of the total oil it imports before the sanctions were lifted when Iran signed the deal with the US when Obama was in power.

Despite the fact that Iran is experiencing domestic turmoil over governance issue, Iranian leaders are seeking ways to defend the nation’s economy from the US sanctions. After Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal, which lifted most sanctions in 2015, the rial currency dropped up to 40 per cent in value. This prompted protests by bazaar traders usually loyal to the Islamist rulers. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has rightly said that the US sanctions were aimed at turning Iranians against the Government. Apart from the severe economic situation at home to the extent of even shortages of drinking water, Iran is increasingly finding it difficult to access the global financial system. It is not clear if President Rouhani’s counter-measures to withstand the sanctions can bring any succour and help bail out the nation from the negative impact of the sanctions.

Among the counter-measures that Iran is thinking is to attain self-sufficiency in gasoline production, look for potential buyers and ways of repatriating income in conformity with international law after the US sanctions take effect. Khamenei suspects that the US is acting with Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states that regard Shi’ite Muslim Iran as their main regional foe to destabilise the Government in Tehran.

Iran’s fears seem to be genuine. For example, Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City and an ally of Trump, said in a speech he delivered at the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Paris on June 30 that Trump’s move will suffocate Iran’s “dictatorial ayatollahs”, suggesting the decision to reimpose sanctions was aimed squarely at regime change. It appears that with the increased fear of sanctions, major European companies have started leaving the country despite Europe’s vows to save the nuclear accord. Even the US National Security Advisor John Bolton had made similar observations in the same forum in May 2016 before he assumed the current office. However, Britain, France, and Germany — which signed the nuclear accord along with the US, Russia, and China — opine that the agreement prevents Iran from developing weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

As with Iran, Trump also has a problematic relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but despite that, a summit with him is scheduled for July 16 in Helsinki. Russia, too, faces sanctions over its annexation of Crimea some time ago. The truism, however, is that the US sanctions against Russia and Iran are backed neither by the UN nor the world community. Seen from this perspective, drawing India into this battle and coercing it to cut oil imports is neither justified nor legally valid. If India bends, it would risk breaking ties with its traditional allies. On its part, it would be against America’s interest to displease India as it needs it now more than ever before. Indian investments in Afghanistan assist the US in its effort to develop the nation. Secondly, India is the only country in Asia with the military and economic power to cope with the Chinese challenge and check its efforts to establish hegemony in the region, which is why military cooperation with India by the US could be of its interest. India should be careful not to allow itself to be used by the US against its traditional allies Russia and Iran.

If India bends to Trump’s diktat, it would be against its national interests. Russia is a time-tested friend of India, and has always stood by its side. Over 60 per cent of its military equipment is of Russian origin. With the example of the way Trump handled North Korea after exchanging diatribes against Kim Jong-un before meeting him in Singapore on June 12 and then praising him, India needs to be circumspect if it decides to review its decision to purchase S-400 from Russia, lest Trump’s change in direction could result in India spoiling its own relations with Russia and unable to restore the ties.

India’s economic and strategic interests are enmeshed with that of Iran’s. Seen to be a counter to China’s port development activities across Asia, such as in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan, and recently in Djibouti, Indian interests and participation in the development of Chabahar Port in Iran provides India with multiple strategic benefits. Moreover, India signed an agreement with Iran after Rouhani’s visit to India when it agreed to increase its oil purchases from Iran. Supporting Trump’s call to stop this shall not only violate that agreement but could push Iran away from India and would damage its agreement on the Chabahar Port. China is in multiple conflicts with the US and the largest purchaser of oil from Iran is unlikely to accede to the US requests. If India succumbs to Trump’s demands, it would almost mean gifting the Chabahar Port to China.

So, what are then India’s options? Despite its growing proximity with the US, India needs to, as before, continue pursuing an independent foreign policy and not compromise with its national interests. As a first step, India should not sign the Communication, Compatibility, Security Agreement, underlining its disagreement with America’s unilateral policies.

In the meantime, with the announcement of the US sanctions against Iran, oil prices rose as significant volumes of crude oil from world markets were taken away coinciding with the increase in demand worldwide. Trump was quick to lash out at OPEC and warned that it is manipulating oil markets. The US put pressure on ally Saudi Arabia to raise supplies to compensate for lower exports from Iran. Saudi Arabia pumps around 10 million bpd and could raise output to 11 million bpd, but Trump wants Riyadh to increase production to 12 million bpd, something the kingdom has never done in the past. Rising gasoline prices could create a political headache for Trump. It remains to be seen if Saudi Arabia bails out Trump as it is the biggest producer of oil in the Middle East.

But the disturbing news is that India’s Oil Ministry has asked refiners to prepare for a “drastic reduction or zero” imports of Iranian oil from November as demanded by Trump. Does it mean that New Delhi is responding to a push by the US to cut trade ties with Iran and surrendering its autonomy to take policy decisions in conformity with its national interests? It is perplexing that while at the one hand, India says it does not recognise unilateral restrictions imposed by the US and only follows UN sanctions, it advises its oil refineries to prepare for a cut in imports and bring close to zero by the deadline given by Trump and look for alternatives.

India is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil after China and if India is forced to take action to protect its exposure to the US financial system, it could have huge implications for the region, besides jeopardising its ties with Iran.

It may be recalled that during the previous round of sanctions, India was one of the few countries that continued to buy Iranian oil, although it had to reduce imports as shipping, insurance, and banking channels were choked due to the European and US sanctions. But this time, the situation is not the same. Now while India, China, and Europe are on one side, the US alone stands alone on the other.

The question that arises is how effective is Trump’s diktat? On the surface, it seems to be working. Reliance Industries Ltd, the operator of the world’s biggest refining complex, decided to halt imports. Nayara Energy, an Indian company promoted by Russian oil major Rosneft, is also preparing to halt imports of oil from Iran from November. The company has already started cutting its oil imports from June.

This leaves open the question if there are options to find replacements to Iranian oil. Though Saudi Arabia is expected to boost oil production, as it has pledged a “measurable” supply boost, it remains unclear if that is the best alternative to outcast Iran from the oil market.

Iran is not done yet and is unlikely to give in so quickly. In honouring its ties with India, it has offered virtually free shipping and an extended credit period of 60 days. India does have the option of buying oil from Saudi Arabia or Kuwait to replace Iran, but it has to consider what economic values such choices offer. India would be happy with the assurance given by Haley in New Delhi that a trade war with India “wasn’t an option” for the Trump administration.

India, therefore, needs to craft its Iran policy carefully; a policy that protects its important strategic and economic interests with Iran, while at the same time, does not displease other stakeholders.

Dr Panda, former Senior Fellow at the IDSA, was until recently ICCR Chair Professor at Reitaku University, Japan

Writer: Rajaram Panda

Courtesy: The Pioneer

BJP won their last elections by full-majority UP votes. In this election, the greatest challenge BJP will face is to save it 73 seats. Out of the 73 seats, BJP has 71, whereas, 2 belong to Apna Dal, their alliance partner. UP will, therefore, be BJP’s first priority in this election.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has started the campaign for the next Lok Sabha Elections. Dialogue with the beneficiaries of different schemes of the Central Government through the NaMo App is part of the campaign. Along with that, his rallies and programmes for different States have been fixed. It is being said that PM Modi will visit Uttar Pradesh almost every month and address a big rally in some part of the State.

It was, after all, UP that had pushed the BJP into power with full majority. This time, the party’s greatest challenge is to save its 73 seats. Of the 73, the BJP has 71 of its own and two seats belong to its alliance partner, Apna Dal. That is why UP is the first priority in the BJP’s election strategy. Hence, the BJP and RSS have decided to give it their all in the State.

Recently, there was a coordination meeting between the RSS and BJP in UP, which was attended by Yogi Adityanath and other senior leaders of the party. It is possible that the RSS chief could have directed Yogi to hold the Kumbh Mela on a grand scale next year. The Central and State Governments are also gearing up for the event, which is expected to reap political benefits for the BJP.

Meanwhile, preparations are on for the rallies of PM Modi. In the last week of June, the PM went to Maghar where he inaugurated the Kabir Academy and addressed a rally. His next rally might be held on July 15. Modi is going to his own constituency, Varanasi, for two days, where he will address a gathering and announce sops for his constituency.

Some say Modi’s next rally will be held in Azamgarh — the old bastion of Samajwadi Party, and from where Mulayam Singh Yadav is presently an MP. Though he would probably not fight from here this time. This place is also significant for the politics of Purvanchal. So, in July, the PM might address a rally in Azamgarh. After that, Modi will go to Siddharthnagar in August. Till the elections are announced, Modi is expected to address a rally in UP every month.

CONG’S PRESSURE POLITICS

The Congress is playing pressure politics with the RJD in the same way the JDU is playing politics with its alliance partner, the BJP. In this game, leaders of the Congress and JDU are helping each other. It started when the Congress in-charge, Shaktisinh Gohil, invited Nitish Kumar to join the Mahagathbandhan. Nitish used this opportunity to put pressure on the BJP, but Tejashwi Yadav is well aware of this game and exposed it by directly opposing Nitish.

After that, the Congress leaders openly put pressure on the RJD. Former president of Bihar Congress, Shakeel Ahmad, advised Tejashwi not to use such words for Nitish. He also said that if the Congress leaders had given any statement about him, he must not retaliate by using harsh words against Nitish.

The real motive behind Ahmad’s statement was to tell the RJD that it had the option of Nitish also. In fact, the RJD leaders are using alliance partners other than the Congress as well. It has brought in Jitan Ram Manjhi’s party, Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), but they are asking for five Lok Sabha seats. Meanwhile, the RJD is also in talks with the CPI and CPM. The RJD will leave at least three seats for them, and in this scenario, there is a chance that the Congress will get very few seats.

On the other hand, if the Congress goes with the RJD, Shakeel Ahmad’s ticket from Madhubani is also in danger. The last time, he was not able to fight from this seat. The Congress is putting pressure to get more seats than the RJD. In the last Lok Sabha Elections, the Congress had fought on 15 seats, and this time, the party is eyeing at least 12 seats. In this pressure game, the Congress has also included Gujarat’s Patidar leader, Hardik Patel.

NCP WANTS EQUAL SEATS

The alliance between the Congress and NCP is almost decided in Maharashtra, and both parties will fight together. This time, the NCP leaders are demanding a change in the old formula; they are not ready for the 26 and 22 seats formula. They say that the NCP had won more seats in the last elections, so this time, it must be given at least equal number of seats, if not more than the Congress.

In the last Lok Sabha Elections, the Congress was almost finished. Only two of its leaders — Rajeev Satav and Ashok Chavan — were able to make an entry into the Lok Sabha. On the other hand, four NCP leaders had emerged victorious in the LS polls. Recently, the NCP won the Bhandara-Gondiya seat in the byelections. Now, the NCP has five MPs, while the Congress has only two. That is why the NCP leaders are demanding equal seats.

The NCP wants both parties to get 24 seats of the total 48. And if any new partner joins in, both parties will share their seats in equal ratio.

The leader of Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana, Raju Shetti, has left the partnership of the BJP. The last time around, he had fought along with the BJP and Shiv Sena and had won. He is the leader of farmers and had left the hand of the BJP on the issue of farmers. Now, he will go with the Congress and NCP. The NCP might leave one seat for him from its own quota. If the BSP also comes along, the Congress could leave one seat from its quota.

SUSHIL FIRES NEW SALVO

Sushil Kumar Modi, the BJP leader and Deputy CM of Bihar, is on the offensive against Lalu Prasad and his son Tejashwi. The moment Nitish seemed to be inching towards the Mahagathbandhan again, Sushil Modi sharpened his attack on Lalu’s family. This must be noted that when Nitish was in the Mahagathbandhan, Sushil Modi exposed the hidden properties of Lalu, Rabri, Tejashwi, and Misa, and Nitish had made this the basis to leave Lalu’s side. When the BJP and JDU formed the Government, Sushil Modi went quiet. When the Congress leaders are trying to take Nitish into the Mahagathbandhan again and tension is rising between the JDU and BJP, Sushil Modi is targeting the Lalu family again. He has said that Lalu is the biggest zamindar of Bihar, giving details of the properties which were bought by the Government and later transferred on lease to Tejashwi. It is being said that such exposés are being done only to stop Nitish from changing his mind.

Writer: Hari Shankar Vyas

Courtesy: The Pioneer