View Articles

CHANDIGARH: Has the BJP-led NDA-II become the Congress-led UPA-II within 19 months of coming to power? Perhaps yes, with some degree of variations. The question relates to the performance of the two governments on crucial issues including corruption, economy, reforms, and Parliament’s functioning.

It would be a fallacy to write off China, Asia’s mighty economy, as no longer the prime mover of global growth nor its potential to shake the world economy out of its wits, and send it on a downspin. This must inform our policy-makers who gloat about India having upstaged China as the “fastest” growing economy. A percentage of one or two points above China’s growth may make us seem the fastest growing but have we the power to maintain and translate higher rates of growth into meaningful gains for the common man?

The Union Government in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has defined communal incidents in two categories: major communal riots and important communal incidents. Major communal strife is where more than five persons are killed or ten injured or which lead to multiplicity of fatalities, large number of injured persons and extensive destruction of properties. Important communal incident has been defined where at least one person has been killed or ten persons injured.

Corruption has many faces. It also comes from inability to speak when one needs to speak with sense. Today’s Indian politicians should read fourteenth century British poet Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Tales’. Indeed Chaucer offered a good lesson for politicians of entire world. As a ready retired statesman, he ideated a unique lesson for them – when to speak, what to speak, and when not to speak at all.

This is not the first time that foreign education seeking Indian students have been either barred from entering the United States, or locked up there because their preferred educational institutions are unreliable or do not simply exist. Some students were known to have traveled to the US unknowingly with bogus institutional enrolment documents before getting caught. Shamefully, on December 22, 2015, a number of Indian students who landed at the Abu Dhabi airport from Hyderabad for their US pre-clearance (immigration) were publicly shamed as they were reportedly locked up like criminals for 16 hours, hit by a volley of irrelevant questions and eventually deported unceremoniously to India. What is wrong with India and its education system and the government policy allowing expensive foreign education to those less deserving with the help of cheaper public bank loans that are often not fully returned in many cases? This is more so when nearly 30 per cent of seats in India’s most private educational institutions remain vacant. Maybe their education standards are not up to the mark or maybe as bad as in those obscure foreign universities in the US, UK, Australia and Canada.

It was only to be expected that as the saffron brotherhood suspected, post-Bihar, that the ground might be slipping from under the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) feet, they would turn to their ever-reliable electoral plank– the Ram temple.

BHOPAL: After Laxmikant Sharma, former minister and perhaps the main accused in the Vyapam scam walked out of the Bhopal Central Jail, politics in the ruling party has taken dramatic turn. The possibility of it taking a major faction feud is not ruled. He was given ‘hero’s welcome’ when he was released on bail. Sharma spent more than 18 months in jail. People from his home constituency came in large number to greet him. He was taken to his village in a motorcade of more than 200 vehicles.

The Modi Government, with its majoritarian streaks, looks increasingly vulnerable to political pressures at the end of its first 19 months in office. Another Parliament session was virtually ineffecive, pushing more burdens of governance and unfinished reforms into the New Year. 2015 also saw the Modi charisma take a dent with his party's rout in Bihar.

Arun Jaitley is known to be a pragmatic leader, mature, politically sharp and a brilliant lawyer. But even a leader of his caliber sometimes miscalculates and goes on committing blunders after blunders. One wonders what was the need for the CBI to raid the office of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Principal Secretary, Rajendra Kumar. The raid was about some contracts allegedly given by Rajendra Kumar in different capacities during the Sheila Dikshit’s tenure. Kejriwal promptly threw the blame at the Finance Minister, saying: “It has become necessary to reveal that why did the CBI come to my office and which was the file they were looking for. This is the DDCA file under which Arun Jaitley is getting trapped,” he claimed.

What does the crystal ball say about the year 2016 for the Modi government? It is crucial for his administrative, electoral, economic and foreign policy strategies. Next year will decide whether the Modi magic will continue or slide further. Politically it will be a challenging year for not only the BJP but also other parties. The year 2015 has passed with two crushing defeats for the BJP – Delhi and Bihar – and some cheer for the Congress-JD(U)-RJD combine after the Bihar elections. Inspired by the success, non-NDA parties may form an alliance for the next year’s Assembly polls. In Parliament, Modi will continue to face challenges to pass bills in the Upper House as the NDA tally is not going to increase in near future.