View Articles

How do you rate a report released in August 2018 by an authoritative UN agency like ILO exclusively on the wage scenario in India that makes no scrutiny of the Code of Wages, 2017 that was tabled in parliament in August 2017 itself and on which the country has been debating for the past one year?

Veteran journalist and a one-time editor of The Indian Express and The Statesman, former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and prolific author — Kuldip Nayar — breathed his last in the wee hours of Thursday, August 23, in a New Delhi hospital. He was 95.

There were high expectations from the Prime Minister on healthcare issues while addressing the nation from Red Fort on 15th August. His announcements of building toilets, Ayushman Bharat, and opening up of more AIIMS do not fulfill the requirements for universal comprehensive health care to our citizens. The social determinants of health, like supply of clean drinking water, adequate sanitation system, proper housing, nutrition and sufficient wages to meet the day to day needs and health education are the primary factors related to healthcare. However, these determinants are not integrated into the government’s policy making in practice.

Following the main election manifesto 2014, the BJP had come out with a supplementary promise about the North East, which said that the party “will take initiatives for the permanent solution of the long pending issues of the Bodos and other tribals of Assam, the people of Sikkim ... and other neglected regions”. The promise proved to be hollow. The disenchanted people are, therefore, being experimented with the spectre of NRC for Assam. The communal venom is being re-injected. However, the BJP chief’s claim of ‘sweeping victory in the North East’ is too difficult for him to realize.

‘Strings attached’ is what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government wanted to avoid while making it a policy in 2004 not to accept foreign government aid at times of disasters. Several small and big disasters have hit India since then and Kerala floods 2018 is a calamity of great size. It will take much in money and resources to bring back the state on its wheels and its people on the road to recovery.

Congress is like 'Get off my lawn' since May 2014. Congress without power is like jail without parole. Jailbreak, the only option. Overpower the jail superintendent. That is Mani Shankar Aiyar and Salman Khurshid in 2015. They crossed the border to lay out the plan – 'Get off my lawn, Pakistan please help'. Last week Navjot Sidhu took the turn. He hugged Gen Qamar Bajwa, felt the electricity run up his spine, ‘Qayanat Mil Gaya!’

While India grieves the demise of its beloved statesman-leader Atal Behari Vajpayee, political leaders, ruling elites and the corporate board rooms are weighing its implications for the electoral prospects of BJP and Modi in the 2019Lok Sabha polls. This is particularly in view of the perception that Modi is losing his touch and charisma.

The Modi government is heading to seek a renewal of mandate before long to implement its triple credo of perform, reform and transform for another five years beginning the summer of 2019, having subjected the economy to disruptive demonetization of high denomination currencies in 2016 and the perfunctory placement of the goods and services tax (GST) in July 2017 as the acme of its economic reformist credentials in its maiden tenure. Though admirers and critics of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) have their own binary view of either good or bad image of the Modi sarkar, the incontrovertible fact remains that the much-touted high growth potentials of the economy had not been duly exploited in the bygone years to make a qualitative difference to the living standards of legions of Indians.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech surreptitiously missed the Make in India story, while he was exuberant about all other major schemes. Make in India was supposed to be his flagship scheme, as it was projected as the main driver of job creation in the country.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP chief Amit Shah reiterated their confidence several time in the last three months that the BJP would come back with a larger number in the next Lok Sabha. It may be treated as inevitable need to boost morale of the party but it also reflects lack of confidence. Even a section among the political observers has begun to predict that the next election may drive India back to era of coalition politics. Yet they feel that neither of the present coalitions, the BJP led National Democratic Alliance nor the Congress led United Political Alliance may gain a clear mandate. They will have to look for new partners. The UPA has better chances than the NDA that suffered loss of divorce by two powerful political entities, TDP in Andhra and Shiva Sena in Maharashtra.