Prime Minister's San Jose speech to malign India and project himself

SAN JOSE — In a veiled attack on the corruption during UPA regime and a barb at the Congress President's son-in-law Robert Vadra, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today deprecated the culture of graft in the country and said he has provided graft-free governance.
He said corruption during the previous government's time had triggered anger among people.
"In our country it doesn't take much for allegations to come up against politicians... Someone made 50 crores, someone's son made 250 crores, (someone's) daughter made 500 crores, (someone's) damaad (son-in-law) made 1000 crores..." he said addressing the Indian community at the packed SAP Centre in San Jose, California.
Switching on to a question answer mode, he asked the audience "Is the country not disappointed?"
The people replied "yes".
"Is there not anger against corruption," he asked.
"Yes," people shouted.
Mod then asked, "I am standing before you. Tell me if there is any allegation against me."
"No," people shouted. He then told the crowd that he is giving every minute of his life in the service of the nation and he would live and die for the country.
While Modi's reference to sons and daughters of politicians being corrupt is seen as a reference to culture of corruption in the country, the reference to son-in-law is seen as a barb at alleged land deals entered into by Vadra with the some state governments.
Modi also said that the 21st century is India's century and attributed the sudden change in India's fortune to the commitment, strength and pledge of the 125 crore people of the country.
"For some time now, people are saying that the 21st century is India's century," Modi thundered in an address to a strong crowd of 18,500 Indian-Americans.
 Modi said that in the past 16 months, world's perception about India has changed dramatically. The world is looking at India with a new vision and aspiration. He attributed this change to the commitment, strength and pledge of the 125 crore people of the country. Modi said he is confident of India's success because 65 per cent of the population of the country are of less than 35 years 800 million.

The Great Indian Capitalist

 

Aditya Karkera  Editor in Chief of The Young Post

One year has passed under the premiership of Narendra Modi, and, to the disappointment of his prophetic opponents, India has not collapsed into a fiery orgy of violence, death, and backwardness. India has not arisen to the glorious and seemingly inevitable paradise that Modi's fervent endorsers promised either.
Narendra Damodardas Modi, the 15th Prime Minister of the Republic of India, it seems, is, like his 14 predecessors and certainly like all his successors, a man who fills proud optimism in the hearts of some, and bitter scorn in the hearts of others - neither of which is unjustified if one studies Modi's first year in power - a year filled with progress and retardations, order and chaos, great leaps forward, and great leaps back.
Narendra Modi stands to either be one of the greatest and most respected Prime Ministers in Indian history, or another loud mouthed demagogue who shall be relegated to the dustbin of history - labelled a failed experiment in Indian politics.
Regardless, Modi's first year has been anything but dull.

Narendra Modi's first year has been a colourful mixture of Modi planting the seeds of great change in India, and Modi harvesting the planted crops of the former Congress government. He hasn't made an overt effort to distinguish between the two, but the seeds he has planted will yield even greater fruits for India when the time comes.
The most noticeable success of Narendra Modi's first year has been the immense progress India has made in foreign relations. The recently concluded Hanover Messe is, by far, Modi's most impressive achievement - where India, as host country, pitched itself to foreign investors as the ideal manufacturing hub for a wide variety of products - from space to textiles.
The seeds he has planted will yield even greater fruits for India when the time comes.
This is of course in tandem with Modi's Make in India campaign - an ambitious vision to transform India into a manufacturing behemoth that can rival China. Although there are several imperfections in Modi's Make in India vision - such as the point raised by Dr. Raghuram Rajan that emulating a Chinese growth model may not work the same way for India as it did China - the fact that he envisioned it was more than enough to attract valuable foreign capital.
In the realm of international politics too Modi is becoming a giant to be reckoned with, having earned the respect of Barack Obama (who personally penned Modi's profile in the TIME 100 list this year and called him India's "reformer-in-chief"). His state visits to the East Asian tiger economies has also been greatly productive and has opened several avenues for FDI to pour into India.
India has earned greater respect under Modi, and Modi himself commands a fair deal of respect as not just a regional leader, but a world leader.
Economic growth has been stable and rose by nearly three percentage points between Modi's inauguration and the next financial quarter, and Modi's strategy of channelling FDI into manufacturing has not yet failed him despite the warnings of the central bank. All of this can be credited to the fact that Modi is the first Prime Minister since Indira Gandhi to have successfully tied his cabinet to a political leash.

Where Modi failed
It is important to understand that while Narendra Modi will arguably be the greatest Prime Minister of this decade, his government will be one of the worst. While Narendra Modi's vision will lead India to new realms of prosperity, his government's backwardness and conservatism will only pull his vision down into the mud.
Why? Because Narendra Modi's government is not one built on technocratic grounds, but political ones. In other words, his cabinet is not made up of entirely qualified ministers, but merely politically strategic ones - people who will let him carry out his great reforms without interfering and, most importantly, without opposing him. This trend will only continue, as it has with Smriti Irani, an under-qualified but politically strategic member of Modi's cabinet who will never be a contrarian to Modi.
Modi's one man show control of his government this past year has been a double edged sword, because there's only so much a one man army can do before breaking down
To talk about his economic performance would require another piece at another time, but considering that both of Dr. Manmohan Singh's first years as Prime Minister were more economically progressive than Modi's first year speaks volumes. Modi's supporters believe that he cannot work magic in just a year. Well, such generous time considerations were never given to Dr. Singh.
"It seems that only Dr. Manmohan Singh is a robot for not speaking up on important issues, while Narendra Modi is wise and contemplating for his silence."
Modi failed to speak up against increasing state censorship, did not address the question of net neutrality adequately, did not speak on the security threats posed to India by the Naxals this year, failed to advance basic rural programs for food security and women's safety despite launching ambitious rural finance programs, continuously ignored the valuable advice of the RBI governor with regards to investment policy, and has been silent about institutionalising a strong Lokpal system in India despite election promises to do the same in a matter of months. It seems that only Dr. Manmohan Singh is a robot for not speaking up on important issues, while Narendra Modi is wise and contemplating for his silence.
Narendra Modi's greatest failure as Prime Minister after one year, however, is that he cannot speak up against visible injustice and growing religious tension for fear of upsetting his mostly Hindu, mostly North Indian, and mostly male supporters. From the issue of forced conversions by Hindus and Christians, to the question of the Bajrang Dal's growing violence against other faiths, Modi chose to brush it all under one brief statement that promised his government's dedication to secularism.
Nobody can blame him. Very few politicians of his experience and calibre will do something as stupid as cracking down on the Bajrang Dal's unlawful activities after seeking campaigning help from them during the elections. Modi's political acumen is thus both a booster and a handicap to him, because he's too smart to choose the right thing over the most practical thing, which is nothing to be proud of.

A flawed messiah and a great capitalist
In many ways, Narendra Modi is the great Indian capitalist - a man willing to put everything on the line to watch Indian wealth grow, but not ready to accept that there are several dangerous consequences of rapid growth - such as income inequality, religious tensions between richer religious communities and poorer religious communities and the rabid advance of corporate influence in politics.
"Narendra Modi is a secular and liberal Prime Minister carrying the expectations of religious fanatics and conservatives on his shoulders."
Like all capitalists, Narendra Modi sees the ultimate profit - in this case, prosperity for India - as being more important than the gruelling and often difficult decisions that must be taken to reach that profit. To him, the net gain from passing a draconian land acquisition law is greater than the suffering of the farmers that will lose their land to satisfy someone else's model of "development".
And just as every other capitalist does, Narendra Modi will reach a fork in the road, where he must decide if he will choose the path that benefits the economy, or the people who are dependent on the economy. Because at the end of the day, a starving farmer on the verge of killing himself cares little for reforms that will take decades to come to fruition and will mostly benefit the affluent.
Narendra Modi is a secular and liberal Prime Minister carrying the expectations of religious fanatics and conservatives on his shoulders. His is a great burden to bear, and despite his imperfections, he is India's best hope for meaningful change.
Narendra Modi is essentially a flawed messiah - he shall deliver India to great progress, but India shall stumble along the way. In my book, stumbling along is far better than not moving at all.

Perception and performance of BJP

In the last one year the Bharatiya Janata Party has experienced both exciting highs and depressing lows. From being seen as a party that was pro-growth and pro-reforms, the BJP is now struggling to fight off the perception that it is anti-poor and anti-farmer. The dividing line was always thin, and now it has definitively been crossed. After the spectacular victory in the Lok Sabha election in May last, the party did extremely well in Assembly elections that followed in 2014. But it tripped in the Delhi election and is now struggling to contain rising opposition to the changes it has proposed in the Land Bill. The national executive meeting of the party in Bengaluru was thus an opportunity to reassess its own performance in government and identify the reasons for both its successes and failures. Unmistakably, the honeymoon period for the Narendra Modi government is well and truly over: new promises are not enough to retain support when old ones have not been kept. The challenge for Prime Minister Modi and BJP president Amit Shah was to devise a strategy to retain the support of an increasingly impatient core group of the party with the Hindutva cultural nationalist project as the agenda, and to live up to the expectations of the new converts who were hoping the government would deliver on the promise of jobs and growth and better living standards.

Between the Lok Sabha victory and the Delhi loss, the BJP tied up with the Peoples Democratic Party in J&K, agreeing to status quos and compromises on issues such as Article 370 that have alienated its supporters in the rest of the country. Also, on several occasions Mr. Modi and his senior Ministers had to intervene to rein in some of the fringe elements and junior Ministers who were indulging in hate speech and communally divisive propaganda. All these did not go down very well with the core Hindutva elements in the party and the government, who were hoping to have a free run as the BJP had a majority on its own. And, while the government intended the changes to the Land Bill as pro-business measures, these were viewed as efforts to marginalise the rural poor and the small farmer. The national executive was thus focussed on correcting the perceptions through closer coordination between the party and the government. Party forums are important sources of feedback and assessment for any government. But like the government, the BJP too seems to have lost touch with the people on some crucial issues. The national executive seems to have identified the problem. The solution, however, does not lie in a propaganda blitzkrieg but in performance. 

The Hindu Editorial 

There is a larger question of NPA of Rs 2.60 lakh crore. Who has taken the money. Why Government is not publishing their names", CPI National Secretary D Raja

 

PTI

Chennai, Apr 5 : CPI today asked the Centre why it was not publishing the names of corporates who have Rs 2.60 crores lying in their bank accounts as non-performing assets (NPA).

"Blackmoney promise was given. But nothing has been done so far. But, there is a larger question of NPA of Rs 2.60 lakh crore. Who has taken the money. Why Government is not publishing their names", CPI National Secretary D Raja said during a discussion on Union Budget, organised by VIT University, here.

Terming the budget as a "failure" in many aspects, Raja said "this budget really protects the interest of Corporate houses. It does not protect the interest of young people. Time has come to discuss fiscal federalism comprehensively", he said.

CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said the proposed land bill was not in the interests of the country and farmers.

BJP had supported the earlier Land Bill and Left parties also wanted to make some improvements in it. But, now the saffron party is coming with a new Land Bill. When Left parties wanted some clarification in the Bill, it was defeated in the Parliament, he said.

DMK Rajya Sabha MP 'Tiruchi' Siva flayed the Centre for not allocating sufficient funds to departments and said the budget has left the common man "disappointed".

"It is a big disappointment for the common man. In specific, for some of the departments like health, education, the allocation of funds has come down," he said.

Opposing the points putforth by the political leaders, BJP Tamil Nadu unit President Tamizhisai Sounderrajan said amid the discussion in parliament, a senior Opposition leader of the Congress party was missing, she said without naming Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi.

On criticism that the budget was "pro-orporates and not pro-poor", she referred the Jan Dhan scheme and Swachh Bharat scheme introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Is Jan Dhan scheme and Swachch Bharat schemes are for Corporates? five lakh toilets are to be built. Is this for Corporates? I am totally denying the point raised here", she said.

Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said that they are ready to face consequences on Land Bill

 

Hardening its stance, the Centre on Sunday indicated that it would not allow further amendments to the controversial Land Bill and asserted that it is ready to face the "consequences" even as it acknowledged that Rajya Sabha is a "stumbling block in our way."
"Government has made the needed amendments. If there are well-meaning suggestions, let it come. Then we will consider it," Parliamentary Affairs and Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu told, when asked if the government is ready for more amendments.
Earlier, speaking to reporters, Naidu did not buy the argument that there is a deadlock on the Bill as the Opposition is firm on opposing it.
"There is no deadlock. Lock has been opened. We did not have numbers (in Rajya Sabha), but the Coal Bill has been passed, Mines and Minerals Bill (MMDR) has been passed in the
same Rajya Sabha, let's see.

"After the nine amendments moved by the government in the Lok Sabha (on the Land Bill), there is nothing, nothing objectionable. We did not do anything unilaterally. We have done extensive consultations," the minister said.

"They (the Congress and Opposition parties which are against the Land Bill) don't want growth. They don't want good name to the government. They want development holiday to be
extended. We are not ready. We want to do something. We are ready to face the consequences (on the Land Bill)", he said. Expressing confidence that the people "will be with us,"
Naidu said the government would again bring the Bill to Lok Sabha.
"I am confident, with the mood of the people, the members of Parliament will support the Bill in both Houses and it will be passed. That's my confidence," he said.
"Let there be a constructive debate when Parliament meets. When we discuss, if there are meaningful suggestions, government has declared that we are open for discussion," he said.
Naidu said the NDA government is eager to deliver on the promises made to people, "but the fact is we do not have majority in Rajya Sabha. It's a stumbling block in our way.
Sometimes, legislative measures and nation's development have been blocked in Parliament."
But the Minister asserted that the government is determined to go ahead with its agenda of development and good governance.
He said under the NDA government led by Narendra Modi, the days of scams and scandals are over.

"In the last ten months, we could not hear a single scam or scandal," he said.  Naidu said "leadership is back, investors are looking at India. Ease of doing business is back."

The party has decided to counter on a massive scale across the country from May the "disinformation campaign" unleashed against the Modi government by the Opposition, he said.
"We will lay bare before the nation the falsehood that is sought to be spread by our opponents," he said
DNA

The CJI said the judiciary is open to “suggestions, change and dialogue” to evolve administration of justice.

 

Modi: Our justice delivery system caught up in morass of archaic laws

Noting that judiciary should attain perfection as it grows more powerful, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the need for judges to evolve an in-built mechanism of self-correction to prevent rot from within.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the Chief Justices and Chief Ministers Conference in Delhi on Sunday, Mr. Modi said the common man’s expectation from the judiciary is huge.

Even the slightest wound to judiciary in the form of corruption would endanger the image of the entire nation, Mr. Modi said.

Mr. Modi said judiciary, as an institution, enjoys so much credibility that even a man punished thinks it is impossible that the judiciary could go wrong.

He said the political classes are under scrutiny through multiple means like the Election Commission, the Right to Information Act and now the Lokpal even as the judiciary is not, owing to the public confidence and credibility it enjoys.

However, this credibility is all the more the reason for judiciary to take the initiative to independently devise an “inherent method” of checks and transparency, he said.

“If the government commits a fault, we have you to correct us. So you cannot afford to be seen in the wrong,” Mr. Modi said.

Earlier, Chief Justice H.L. Dattu, in his speech, described the relationship between the judiciary and executive as that of siblings who hold each others’ hands and correct one another when needed. The CJI said the judiciary is open to “suggestions, change and dialogue” to evolve administration of justice.

As the CJI emphasised on government co-operation to improve court infrastructure, the Prime Minister expressed his unhappiness with the large number of tribunals in existence and the way they are eating into financial resources.

“Is there a need for so many tribunals? I want all seniors in the Supreme Court to contemplate if tribunals are actually helping in improving functioning of judiciary as a lot of budget goes waste in tribunals,” Mr. Modi pointed out.

The Prime Minister’s words came immediately after CJI Dattu, in his speech, sought autonomy to judiciary to “re-appropriate finances allocated to it” by the government.

The Chief Justice said that judges should be consulted for inputs before budgetary allocations are made to the judiciary.

The Prime Minister agreed with Chief Justice Dattu that judiciary cannot solve pendency alone and a co-ordinated effort is required.

Mr. Modi said pendency has been a constant refrain in joint conferences held in the past. He reminisced being a witness to threadbare discussions held in the earlier conferences. He pointed out that no solution has been arrived at so far. Instead, he drew attention to how poorly drafted laws and a morass of unnecessary and archaic laws have held up court proceedings, adding to pendency.

“Courts take years to interpret these poorly drafted laws. This is a reason for pendency. Again, our justice delivery system is caught up in a morass of unnecessary laws,” the Prime Minister said.

While Prime Minister Modi highlighted the need to sustain quality in the judiciary, Chief Justice Dattu pointed out that the best minds are hardly attracted to the judiciary. The CJI pointed out that the judge population ratio has dipped to 1:61,865.

“The stark reality is that the salary of a judge is somewhat that of a fresh graduate working in a law firm. I fear for the future,” the CJI said.

Union Law Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda agreed the judicial system is under strain. 

The Hindu

A reality and lesson on land acquisition-C. P. Chandrasekhar

The parliamentary stand off over the Indian government’s effort to ease procedures to acquire land for “public purposes” continues, with the government deciding to re-promulgate the ordinance amending the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. Besides concern about the impact that this would have on the farming community and those dependent on it, another cause for the controversy is the apprehension that the relaxed procedures can be exploited by profit-seeking players interested in the diverting land acquired to uses other than the public purpose.

Evidence from the experience with the creation of Special Economic Zones, governed by a different law, suggests that the apprehension of the opposition is indeed warranted. Replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha on 18 March 2015, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry revealed that across 20 states only 43 per cent of the land acquired (with or without the assistance of the state governments) for the purpose of creating SEZs had been utilised. The utilisation rate varied hugely from zero in the case of Goa, Jharkhand, Manipur and Nagaland to 96 per cent in the regions now constituting the state of Telangana and 81 per cent in West Bengal.

Smriti Irani spots CCTV camera at changing room - FIR registered --- Congress claimed that the ‘changing room scandal’ was Goa’s best kept secret, especially in tourism-oriented coastal villages.

 

we will take stringent action, says Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar

Trying on clothes at an outlet of a reputed garment brand at Candolim village near Panaji, a vigilant Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani on Friday spotted a hidden camera positioned to record inside the small room, raising an alarm after which Goa Police registered a case against the staff for voyeurism.

Ms. Irani, on a visit to Goa, came across the camera when she was in the FabIndia showroom to buy clothes and immediately protested, alerting her husband, businessman Zubin Irani, said Superintendent of Police (North) Umesh Gaonkar.

She then called BJP legislator Micheal Lobo, who lodged an First Information Report (FIR).

“When we switched on the camera, the entire video was recorded... This is mischief... Somebody has been watching the recording,” Mr. Lobo said.

Footage from the camera, installed four months ago according to staff at the store, was being recorded in a computer in the manager’s office, Mr. Lobo said, confirming that it held many recordings of people changing in the trial room.

Calangute police, which searched the showroom after a complaint by Mr. Lobo, found a CCTV camera installed in the ventilation unit of the room.

Mr. Gaonkar said police have recorded statement of Irani.

“Irani’s statement has been recorded as a victim, along with another woman who had entered the room earlier,” he said.

Police have already sealed the shop and is inspecting the showroom.

A case has been filed under section 354 C (voyeurism) and 509 (intrusion into privacy) of Indian Penal Code against employees who were monitoring the cameras. We are analysing the entire data,” the SP said.

Mr. Gaonkar said that police have formed special team to inspect all the showrooms in the coastal belt to ensure that there are no CCTV cameras installed in changing rooms.

He said instructions will also be issued to all the police stations to form teams and inspect the changing rooms in their respective areas.

Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, who is in Bengaluru to attend the BJP National Executive, said: “...I have been given to understand that Madam Smriti Irani had gone to Goa, and during her stay in Goa probably she went for some purchases in shop by name FabIndia.

“Suo moto case has been registered against the concerned person. We will take stringent action. Don’t worry we will take stringent action, case has been registered against the culprit. Through investigation would be done and the culprit will be taken to task.”

“I spoke to the police officer over there. It was reported that she had gone for changing of clothes and immediately she noticed that there was one hole in the room and beyond the hole one camera was hanging, so immediately came and complained. It was verified, it was confiscated, it was learned that it was functioning and case has been registered against the manager and the staff,” he said. 

The Hindu

Guj registered negative growth in agriculture in 2012-13: CAG

PTI

Gandhinagar, Apr 1 : The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has observed several deficiencies in the schemes implemented by Gujarat government for agriculture sector and noted that the state had registered negative growth in this sector in 2012-13.

In its audit report of agriculture sector tabled in the Assembly yesterday, the CAG stated that though Gujarat did better than the national average growth rate in agriculture, it had registered negative growth during 2012-13.

During the 11th five year plan period (2007-12) the average agriculture growth rate of Gujarat was 5.49 per cent per annum as compared to all India average growth rate of 4.06 per cent per annum.

As against 21.64 per cent growth in 2010-11 and 5.02 per cent growth in 2011-12, Gujarat has registered -6.96 per cent growth in 2012-13, which is the first year of 12th Five Year Plan, stated the CAG report.

While conducting the performance audit of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna (RKVY) implemented in Gujarat, CAG observed several deficiencies and non-achievement of targets.

The CAG stated that Gujarat government has missed the seed production target by a great margin even after spending more than Rs 3.5 crore between 2008 and 2012 on the project of providing quality seeds to farmers.

The CAG noted that "against the targeted production of 19,000 quintals of quality seed of groundnut, wheat and pearl millet, the actual production was only 5,524 quintals, and the same was sold to farmers. Thus, notwithstanding the expenditure of Rs 3.54 crore, seed production remained at

29.07 per cent only."      The CAG also criticised the state government for not conducting any evaluation of results after distributing these seeds among farmers. "No evaluation was done to ascertain the

extent of improved productivity by providing quality seeds to the farmers," said the report.

In its observation about the Animal Husbandry sector, the CAG expressed dissatisfaction about the non-availability of data to assess the claims of government in achieving targets. The report also summed-up that targets in this sector remained 'largely unachieved'.

The CAG also highlighted the issue of non-achievement of targets under the Integrated Livestock evelopment (LD) project in Vadodara district due to staff shortage.

The project was aimed to provide artificial insemination and animal care services, including infertility treatment to help farmers improve milk yield. 140 ILD centres were given a target of 21,000 calves between 2009 and 2013, said the report.

However, CAG observed during the audit that out of 140 ILDs, 13 ILD centres were not working on a continuous basis due to the resignation of trained lady Gopals (female staff), and as a result,  round 50 per cent target is achieved.

"Till March 2013, 11,194 calves were born against the target of 21,000 calves. Non-functioning of centres meant that objectives of the project were not achieved to that extent," stated the report.

- See more at: http://ganashakti.com/english/news/details/8437#sthash.AwvfgL6v.dpuf

BJP leader booked for Rs. 123-crore fraud

BJP leader and Mumbai District Central Cooperative Bank’s chairman Pravin Darekar has been booked for allegedly causing the bank a loss of Rs. 123 crore since 1998.

Confirming this, a Mumbai Police officer said the FIR against Mr. Darekar was registered on Friday based on a complaint lodged by advocate Vivekanand Gupta.

In his complaint, Mr. Gupta has accused Mr. Darekar of fraud and embezzlement of funds.

A case was registered against Darekar and another former chairman of the bank Shivaji Nalawade.

Bank officer Prakash Shirwadkar has also been named as an accused.

The Hindu

U.S.-led anti-terror opretion, Over 80,000 Pakistanis killed

More than 80,000 Pakistanis, including over 48,000 civilians, have been killed in the decade-long U.S.-led war against terror in the country, according to a new report.

The report, titled “Body Count: Casualty Figures after 10 Years of the War on Terror”, was released by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War along with Physicians for Social Responsibility and Physicians for Global Survival, The Express Tribune reported on Sunday.

The report, dealing with the conflict from 2004 until the end of 2013, shows that a total of 81,325 to 81,860 persons — including 48,504 civilians, 45 journalists, 5,498 security personnel and 26,862 militants — lost their lives in the terror operation.

It also said that around 1.3 million people were directly and indirectly killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as a result of U.S.-led wars in the regions during the same period.

One million people were killed in Iraq and 220,000 in Afghanistan as a result of the war, it said.

“The figure is approximately 10 times greater than that of which the public, experts and decision makers are aware,” the authors of the study said.

“And this is only a conservative estimate. The total number of deaths in the three countries could also be in excess of 2 million,” they said.

The report scoured the results of individual studies and data published by United Nations organisations, government agencies and non-governmental organisations. 

PTI

left could provide a credible alternative to right-wing forces- Parkash Karat

 

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat, on Wednesday, said the Left, and not the Congress, could provide a credible alternative to right-wing forces.

“The Congress party which is responsible for neo-liberal regime with its attendant corruption and looting of resources cannot be the alternative. Only if there is strong independent Left can there be a realignment of forces to put up a real alternative,” Mr. Karat said, while addressing the Communist Party of India’s 22nd party congress.

Stressing the need for strengthening the constituent parties of the Left, the CPI-M general secretary expressed hope that the party congress would address the task of how to build and strengthen the CPI.

Stating there is a need to strengthen the Left by broadening the scope and ambit of Left unity, Mr. Karat said, “In the recent period, we have taken some steps towards that. Six parties came together for joint actions against the policies of the Modi government. We have to work towards broadening Left unity further by bringing all Left parties, groups and individuals together for joint action and united movements.”

Earlier, CPI general secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy said the Left's weak show in the last elections had disappointed the people to some extent. But the Left was not demoralised.

“We need to win the confidence of the people. Left unity is a pre-condition for broad Left democratic unity to be achieved,” he added.

The party congress also paid homage to the communist leader Govind Pansare who was brutally murdered by unknown assailants recently in Maharastra. 

The Hindu

A grave blunder --------- The Hindu Editorial dated March 24, 1931 on execution of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru in Lahore

On the 84th anniversary of the execution of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru in Lahore, we reproduce our Editorial from the issue dated March 24, 1931

The news of the execution of Bhagat Singh and his two comrades, accused in what is known as the Lahore Conspiracy Case, will come upon the public as a rude shock. For, although the petition for mercy made on their behalf had been rejected by the Viceroy, applications had been made before the High Court with a view to get a judicial pronouncement on the legality of the Local Government’s attempts to carry out the sentence on the prisoners in spite of the fact that the Court which, in the opinion of Counsel for the prisoners, was the only one competent to issue the death warrant, had ceased to exist. The issue raised by Counsel was obviously so complicated and the arrangements made on behalf of the prisoners to get the verdict of the highest tribunal available so advanced that the public felt that for some time at any rate...the execution could not come off and...there was still hope of the prisoners being saved from the extreme penalty of the law. That the Government had every need to proceed with caution will be evident if one recalls the extraordinary circumstances connected with the trial of the accused.

The accused were put up for trial before a Special Magistrate twenty months ago for the offence of conspiracy to wage war against the King by murder, dacoity, manufacture and use of bombs and other methods and, so far as Bhagat Singh was concerned, of having murdered a police officer, Mr. Saunders of Lahore. Subsequently, on the ground that the police ill-treated them, the accused refused to appear in Court... the Lahore High Court... refused to be a party to dispensing with the committed proceedings ...the case was withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, placed before a special tribunal and provision was made for the trial of the accused in their absence. In spite of these extraordinary arrangements, the accused attended the court of the special tribunal for a few days, but following an incident the police handcuffed them and indulged in a lathi charge in the court premises — proceedings which moved one of the judges of the tribunal openly to express his disgust at the police action.

The accused thereafter refused to attend the court and the trial was proceeded with in their absence. The trial went on in their absence without any counsel representing them; without any cross examination of the approvers and without testing the evidence of other witnesses. Nor should it be forgotten that two of the seven approvers subsequently retracted their earlier story. To carry out a sentence of death passed as the result of a trial in such extraordinary circumstances will have been in any case to incur a very grave responsibility. But in this case the additional point had been raised that there was legally no authority competent to give effect to the sentence... By the indecent haste with which they have proceeded in the matter they have defied public opinion and exasperated it in a manner that it is difficult to envisage the gravity of the reactions in this country to their latest blunder. As Gandhiji says, the Government “have lost a golden opportunity of winning over the revolutionary party. It as their clear duty, in view of the settlement, at least to suspend indefinitely the execution. By their action they have put a severe strain upon the settlement and once more proved their capacity for flouting public opinion”.

थे 

भगत सिंह इस बार न लेना काया भारतवासी की , देश भक्ति के लिए आज भी सजा मिलेगी फांसी की।

उनकी तुरबत पे दिया भी नही , जिनके खूं से जले थे चिराग़े वतन ,
सजते  हैं  मकबरे  उनके ,  बेचते  थे  जो  शहीदों  का     कफ़न।

P.Sainath - corporate world in 2014-15 received write-offs of Rs 171 crore every 24 hours.

 This is a truth that every one should know.

 

This year’s budget write-off in customs duty on gold, diamonds and jewellery (all aam aadmi items, of course) is Rs 75,592 crore. That’s well over twice the “record” amount allocated to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. As Prof Jayati Ghosh points out, the MNREGA has given billions of person-days of work to tens of millions of poor rural households this past decade. It has been allocated Rs 34,699 crore. (You can find the gold figure in the Union Budget 2015-16. Just go to the annexure marked Statement of Revenue Foregone; http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2015-16/statrevfor/annex12.pdf.) This giveaway on gold and precious stones in fact accounts for fully a fourth of all customs duty exemptions. Overall, the budget for agriculture has fallen by more than Rs 5,000 crore compared to last year. The concessions on customs duty on gold, however, have gone up by more than five times that amount in the past 12 months.

  Meanwhile, the feeding frenzy at the corporate trough has crossed the Rs 42 trillion mark this year (or US $678 billion, if you’re among those whose overseas stash the Narendra Modi government has pledged to bring back to our sacred shores). Yup, 42 trillion. As in 12 zeroes. Relief for the corporate needy (and other well-off hungry) rec­orded in this year’s budget comes to Rs 5,89,285.2 crore. Or Rs 5.49 lakh-crore ($88 billion roughly) if you skip personal income tax which benefits a relatively wider group of people. And the freebies adding up to that total are just those under a mere three heads: corporate income tax, excise duty and customs duty. The Rs 5.49 lakh-crore figure brings the bills for the 10-year orgy to Rs 42.08 trillion. The public pays for the party. The guests enjoy anonymity.
Did I say 10-year orgy? It’s gone on much longer, actually. Just that the government started publishing revenue forgone data only from 2005-06. How much would the total come to if we had the data for earlier years? Oh, well, never mind. This is big enough. Rs 5.49 lakh-crore is the biggest ever instalment in corporate karza maafi in all the years for which the numbers exist. It is also close to 140 per cent higher than the giveaways of 2005-06, the year we started getting this data (see Table 1).
Write-Offs For The Well-Off Touch
Rs 42,000,000,000,000

Revenue Forgone On Gold, Diamonds & Jewellery
2005-06 to 2014-15
This year’s write-offs, though, come in new clothes. Take, for instance, the corporate income tax handouts. Till the 2013-14 budget, the table listing these was called: major tax expenditures on corporate taxpayers. This year the budget has caught up with the semantics of the elite. It’s now called revenue impact of major incentives on corporate taxpayers (emphasis added). Oh, goody. That makes it all fine then. These are incentives, not grabouts. Don’t crib.
Union finance minister Arun Jaitley told a gushing TV anchor last year that he “hoped” there would be no return to wasteful subsidies under the NDA government. He added that it depended on the situation as it unfolded. So here’s how it unfolded. Corporate income tax written off in the statement of revenue foregone of the last UPA budget was Rs 57,793 crore. In the first year of the Modi regime, it was Rs 62,399 crore—about eight per cent higher. It will likely be even higher since this year’s figure is still an “estimated” or provisional one.
But even going by the provisional figure, it means on income tax alone, the corporate world in 2014-15 received write-offs of Rs 171 crore every 24 hours. Or over seven crore every 60 minutes. Add to that the Rs 1.84 lakh-crore in excise duty waived and Rs 3.01 lakh-crore knocked off in customs duty and you have your Rs 5.49 lakh-crore.
A large part of the trillions in NPAs our banks foster was run up by the wealthy who can’t be named due to secrecy laws.
The media reported that Arun Jaitley has given the rural employment programme it’s biggest boost ever. What Jaitley has said is that he would add another Rs 5,000 crore…if there is tax buoyancy. Not so much a promise as a possibility based on other possibilities. Besides, the Rs 34,699 crore allocated for the MNREGA is actually less, not more. The central government already owes the states around Rs 6,000 crore for this year, which they have not paid. So, as Prof Ghosh points out, the new amount for next year will really be less than Rs 30,000 crore. In any case, the MNREGA funding being capped at the level (around Rs 33,000 crore) it has been for three high-inflation years has a different meaning altogether. But it would be wrong to pin this on Jaitley alone. The wrecking of this vital programme for the rural poor was pioneered earlier. Take a bow, P. Chidambaram.
You can run the MNREGA (on present allocation levels) for over 121 years on Rs 42 trillion. But of course we won’t, with a prime minister who makes a point of displaying his utter contempt for the programme on the floor of Parliament.
You can sustain the food subsidy at present levels of funding for 34 years on the Rs 42 trillion. You could undo some of the most savage cuts—to health and child-related subjects for instance. There is, as the HAQ—Centre for Child Rights points out, “a 22 per cent reduction in health-related sche­mes for children”, and worse, “a 25 per cent reduction in overall education programmes for children….”
But the ‘statement of revenue foregone’ (which should actually be spelt ‘forgone’) reflects a gigantic increase in corporate freebies, in pampering the plutocrats. Customs duties knocked off on gold and precious stones account for more than 10 per cent of all revenue foregone in 2014-15. Take the 10-year period since 2005-06 and the amount lost on customs write-offs on gold, diamonds and jewellery comes to Rs 4.3 trillion. Curb the kids, grow the gold, is it?
There is something quite sickening about this Rs 42 trillion orgy. Something equally nauseous about corporate media quislings who rush to defend the “incentives”. There will be those who insist that these are ‘notional’ or “not handouts”. That “this is for everybody. All benefit”. Fact: the overwhelming share of these incentives/subsidies/write-offs/handouts go to the very well-off. That much, nothing can hide. And remember this: these handouts thr­ough budgetary baksheesh for billionaires are only one part of many such processes through which enormous amounts of public money are given away to the rich and famous (but for the banks and media, they are mostly anonymous).
The second point: all these giveaways listed in the tables are only a part of the total handouts beyond the budget, details of which are still invisible to the public. Like, for example, the trillions of rupees in ‘non-performing assets’ (NPAs) with the public sector banks. A very large part of this was run up by wealthy people whose names, it is argued, cannot be divulged under “secrecy laws”. The corporate media are happy to go along with that. Editors have learnt painfully that pursuing it can sometimes cause embarrassment to their owners. There’s an ethical rationalisation too. Banking laws, privacy, confidentiality. Never mind that when it’s the less privileged, banks run advertisements in new­spapers (as those in AP did in the past decade), naming petty defaulters and carrying details of public auctions of their gold ornaments to recover a few thousand rupees. No banking ethics and confidentiality for them. The media are okay with that, although they mostly stayed silent when the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) named several hundreds of bigger defaulters late last year. That silence goes on till one of them gets to be such a problem it can’t be swept under the carpet without creating a large and ugly bump in it (that’s when a Vijay Mallya finds himself getting bad press).
Union MoS for finance Jayant Sinha said in a written reply to a question in Parliament that NPAs had gone up (alm­ost trebled) “during the last few years”. The amount, Sinha said, was over Rs 2 trillion. Then there’s an even larger amount tucked away in ‘corporate debt restructuring’. And quite a bit more in what are politely called ‘stalled projects’ (soon to grow up to be NPAs). Estimates of this kind of scamming run to many trillions of rupees (a lot more than the $88 billion budget baksheesh). Then there’s land grabbed from thousands of farmers and transferred at dirt cheap rates to large corporations. And other subsidies. Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch? Just look at this mob and their lifetime meal tickets. Boy, what a menu they have on the table!
Courtesy: psaintha.org, March 16, 2015

Modi does not respect the cultures of others-- N.Ram

"It’s not that everything is bad, but on the core issues of the idea of India, on secularism, he does not respect the cultures of others"

 

While his policies on Sri Lanka and China are commendable, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stance on “core issues” reflects intolerance and stands in variance with the idea of India, the Chairman of Kasturi and Sons Ltd, and former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, N. Ram, said here on Tuesday.

“It’s not that everything is bad, but on the core issues of the idea of India, on secularism, policy towards minorities, Article 370, on banning beef-eating, he does not respect the cultures of others,” Mr. Ram said during a panel discussion on “Minorities and the media: at a crossroads” at Maulana Azad National Urdu University. He spoke of the need for the Muslim community to introspect on issues such as gender equality and women’s education. Mr. Ram wondered why reaction to an increase in the country’s Muslim population “bordered on paranoia.”

Prominent journalist Shekhar Gupta faulted the secular media for having taken up extreme positions in the aftermath of the Gujarat riots in 2002, as a result of which they found themselves lost after the Lok Sabha elections last year.

Columnist Swapan Dasgupta said secular parties lived in denial of the “half-truths” in society.

That Indian Muslims were a harassed lot was “established wisdom” in the Pakistani media, said Editor-in-Chief of Pakistan’s Friday Times, Najam Sethi.

Mr. Ram, chief guest at the inaugural session, called for in-depth study into the profiling of Muslims and the issues connected with them by the media, since an impression had gained ground that there was stereotyping of the community. He said the Urdu University was highly qualified to take up the study and if any cooperation was required, the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai would be willing to offer it.

Bihar Govt. presented the revenue surplus budget

A day after proving majority in the Bihar Assembly with comfortable margin, the Nitish Kumar government on Thursday presented the revenue surplus budget expenditure of Rs. 1,20 685.32 crore for the year 2015-16 with no new or extra taxes imposed on the people of the state.

In the budget presented by the State finance minister Bijendra Yadav the Non Plan Expenditure for 2015-16 is estimated at Rs. 63,259.59 crore, which is Rs. 4028.55 crore more than last year and State Plan Outlay is estimated at Rs. 57137.62 crore, which is Rs. 254.82 crore less than Rs 57392.44 crore for the year 2014- 15. The Centrally Plan Scheme (CPS) for the financial year 2015-16, however, is estimated at Rs. 288.11 crore.

“If revenue receipt is more than revenue expenditure the surplus amount is called revenue surplus. For the year 2015-16 revenue surplus is Rs. 11980.95 crore which is 2.63 per cent of GSDP, estimated as Rs 4,55,451 crore for the year 2015-16”, said the State Finance Minister.

This revenue surplus will be used for investment in physical infrastructure generating productive capital assets like roads, buildings, power, schools, health centres, irrigation schemes etc., he added further. However, for the year 2015-16 the estimated Fiscal Deficit is Rs 13584.46 crore, which is 2.98 percent of GSDP Rs 455451 crore.

The minister further said that Bihar is one of those States which have taken its fiscal responsibility seriously and implemented the FRBM (Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Managament) Act in letter and spirit.

Meanwhile, the Opposition BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi termed the budget as depressing for the people of the State. “Contrary to the high expectation from the new government of Nitish Kumar there is no new development plan declared in the budget. It is a depressing budget”, said Mr. Modi.

The Hindu

The obvious and not-so-obvious reasons for AAP victory---- The Hindu

First the obvious. The surprising part of the result is not the victory of the AAP but the huge margin. This clearly indicates that this is not a negative vote. There are two important reasons for the AAP victory. The first is that a great majority of Delhi – especially the deprived – found the 49-day government to be one which had yielded positive results: petty exactions by police and government personnel had disappeared, electricity and water bills were favourably impacted for the consumer. Retrospectively this seems to have produced a sense that AAP provided a representative party of governance and was not just a party of Opposition.

The second important feature is that AAP not only managed to survive the Lok Sabha verdict but actually consolidated their organisation. Elected councillors implemented schemes with their allotted money and the conviction of volunteers was energised again by the Delhi Dialogues which brought them into close contact with local needs of especially the underprivileged and produced local manifestos. All of this brought back the involvement with practical activity and the belief in using the political machinery to serve the nation, which is the real core of the conviction that propels the AAP volunteers. These initiatives kept alive the memory of the benefits of the 49-day government, gave conviction to the volunteers and produced a sense of participation within the processes of party functioning in the voters.

In general what we are seeing is a politics of practical results, of which the main beneficiaries are the underprivileged. These benefits may not be very large – indeed may be much less than what is promised by election manifestoes. But it is a visible testament to the fact that voting can make a difference to one’s everyday life - after the elections are over. What is surprising here is that the middle class too appears to have been influenced by a wave that was apparent only in the lower sections of the social ladder – quite reversing the trend where any pro-poor measure was seen as populist and hence illegitimate. Clearly, in its success in the city state of Delhi, the AAP has tapped into an urban phenomenon. This condition of acute diversity - regional, caste, religion - in a megapolis appears to have made the language of class politics acceptable as a universal language that can overdetermine and bring together the pulls of region, religion, and caste.

Further, it’s a language of class that does not threaten the middle class. The latter seems comfortable with a politics that aids the poor without posing a danger to their status and interests. This is a new language of class politics. Its bedrock is a politics of delivery that can bring together different classes. On the other side, the BJP’s dismal showing is as astounding. The first important reason is the unabated anti minorities campaign by the RSS. This has the obvious impact of posing a security issue for the minorities and for committed secularists, but it has also exceeded the amount of negative religious mobilisation that even committed voters of the BJP may be prepared to tolerate. And across all sections, the statements and actions of the Hindutva parivar has been seen as a distraction from concrete issues of livelihood and living conditions. To this may be added the perceived non-performance of the BJP government especially Mr Modi who has projected himself as the face of the government. There may not be anger against the government but it is seen as working at advertising its governance than in performing governance. Worse, the BJP government is now firmly perceived to be a pro- big business party without providing corresponding benefits to the rest of the population which includes not just the poor but also the middle class trader and government servant. The benefits of liberalizing reforms for the people at large seem like what the revolution was for many skeptical leftists: it was always coming and never arriving. Finally it is the many mistakes of the BJP leadership that had left its workers unenthused. One saw more posters of the BJP than the workers in this election. It was bound to lose with this lack of inner conviction.

It is difficult to forsee the impact of these elections. But one thing is clear and that is that a two party electoral contest is going to cripple the BJP especially if they keep on with their anti-minorities and anti-secular drive. The second is that all parties – especially the Congress that pioneered this path and the BJP that has followed with uncritical enthusiasm in its path – have to recalibrate the liberalization programme. It will mean more caring measures for the poor (and for the environment) - in addition to tightening up the delivery system. All major parties will have to think creatively and not follow the line that comes from neo-liberal think tanks in Washington. Thirdly, this will lead to confusion in the BJP organization and it will certainly shake the position of the BJP leadership under Amit Shah. It will be interesting to speculate what is going to happen if one of the legs of the Modi-Shah combine gets seriously weakened. Finally there is the possibility that the new class politics of delivery may spread elsewhere, especially to other parts of urban India. Finally a caveat. All of this will depend on how well the AAP government functions and is perceived to do so. It can no longer take a cut and thrust method like it did the last time round. It will have to manage many fronts over a period of time, dealing with a hostile central government, implementing (a good part) of their programme and last but by no means the least, tackle the growing communal polarisation that constantly threatens to break out into riots. This will not only impact on its core constituency of Delhi. It will also determine if AAP is to represent the new urban politics of the country and spread to other social constituencies. 

 P.K. Datta

(The writer is a professor of political science at Delhi University)