Hint of Change in President’s Speech

PRANAB MUKHARJEE, PRESIDENT OF INDIA

The President Mr. Pranab Mukherjee has thrown hints for change of government albeit through a vague reference when he told the people to “…to elect a stable government which will ensure security and development” in his address to the nation on eve of 67^th Independence Day.

The President’s speech was loaded with important message if one reads between the lines of the text of his address. For instance, he mentioned about, “Widespread cynicism and disillusionment with the governance and functioning of institutions”.

It is sort of disapproval of the UPA Government for absence of governance and for undermining the institutions.  Mr Mukherjee’s ‘serious concern’ over the functioning of Parliament and Legislatures is yet another note of reprimand to the elected representatives. The President has also expressed concern over corruption. He said,” Corruption is a major challenge”.

Even a cursory look at the major scams like Common Wealth Games, 2G Spectrum, Coal etc. involving lakhs of crores of rupees is a clear indictment of the UPA Government under which all these scams took place.

For the BJP here is an opportunity to campaign for getting voted to power at the Centre. The Central leadership of the Party and the Central Campaign Committee headed by Narendra Modi should tell the people to vote for the BJP which promises to provide a stable government and promises to end the ‘corruption raj’ in the country.

It was rare occasion for the President of India who gave his mind unlike some of his predecessors who spoke about only hyped achievements of the government of the day. Mr. Pranab Mukherjee also told the people to do and work according to their conscience. Taking a leaf out of Bhagwat Gita, the President said, “Even as you choose so you do. I do not wish to impose my view on the people. I have presented to you what I think is right. Now it is for your conscience, your judgement, for your mind to decide what is right”.

The Independence Day also saw for the first time an Opposition leader getting equal prominence in the media at par with the Prime Minister while addressing the people. Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech at Bhuj received equal attention or better to say a little more than that of Manmohan Singh on the Independence Day. It was subject of debate as people and commentators compared the speech of the two leaders.

In the troubles state of Jammu & Kashmir, the chief minister Omar Abdullah sounded like a jilted lover when he said that the people of J & K were looked at differently or better say with disdain by the rest of people of the country and the government at the Centre. At a time when the chief minister should have attempted to cement the gap between the Centre and the State, Omar chose to drive a wedge that would only alienate the people in the valley from mainstream.

~R. K. Sinha

Independence Day: Don’t Let Sacrifices Go Waste

I was born in Independent India. This does not mean I am not aware of the sacrifices of the people many of whom laid their lives to see India a free nation. I can feel the pains of the nation during the freedom movement. I can visualize the scene when Shahdeed Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Raj Guru were hanged by the British rulers. I can imagine the cries of the people who were massacred by the British Government at JaliaNwala Bagh massacre. The Dandi March of Mahatma Gandhi or the courage of Subhash Chandra Bose.

This is our 66^th Independence Day.

As a young man I remember the 1971 war with Pakistan. I was a young journalist then. I had the rare privilege and opportunity to cover the war from forward areas as a war correspondent of The Searchlight and Pradeep published from Patna. That time, our leadership demonstrated the courage and guts to fight it out with Pakistan and crush the atrocities and killings of Bangla speaking population of East Pakistan. Our Army defeated the Pakistani forces and captured almost one lakh Pakistani soldiers and dozens of officers including Lt. Gen Niazi who was chief commander in East Pakistan and made them prisoners of war. Bangladesh was born. The POWs were brought to Ranchi and kept there for some time before being repatriated to Pakistan under ceasefire agreement. Lt. Gen. Jagjit Singh Arora was the commander in chief of the Indian Army in the war zone on the Eastern Sector with Pakistan and General Mankeshaw was the chief of the army staff.

My second most exciting and yet traumatic experience was the Emergency of 1975. I was with Jaya Prakash Narayan and involved in the JP movement.

I wonder how Indira Gandhi who had emerged as a strong Prime Minister and leader of the country in taking on Pakistan in 1971 despite international pressures particularly from Washington, subsquently turned out to be an oppressor of her own countrymen. She fell into the trap of her misguided advisors including her younger son Sanjay Gandhi when she declared internal emergency in the country on 26 June 1975. She had to pay the price when she and her party the Congress were defeated in the elections of 1977.

I feel sad when I see our Prime Minister today, the Defence Minister and other Congress Ministers and leaders including the Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The rulers have least regard for our soldiers. Look at the way our Army is being targeted by the two hostile neighbours- Pakistan and China. Loot at the scams in defence forces, be it the latest pay off in the helicopter deal or purchase of ‘boots, guns and jackets’ for our Army. Substandard materials are being purchased and given to our Army and other two defence forces, the Air Force and the Navy. Even food articles including cereals are substandard.

The government of the day is too much pre-occupied with fighting the fire of corruption which refuses to douse. The government’s second priority is to strike shady deals with some regional political parties for their support in and outside Parliament. Their third priority is to raise the bogey of secularism in the country that only aggravate communal divide.

I recall a speech of Lal Bahadur Shastri. He was addressing a public meeting in Allahabad. Our Prime Minister Shastri narrated an incident. He had gone to see an injured soldier to a hospital. He said that the solider was almost wrapped in cotton bandage. You can imagine his pain and plight. When the accompanying officer whispered into the ears of the injured soldier that Prime Minister Shastri had come to see him, the soldier said that he was feeling sorry that he was not in a position to salute the Prime Minister. After narrating the story, Shastri broke down at the dais in view of huge crowed at the meeting ground.   Shastri knew the contribution of our Armed Forces and the farmers to the nation building and hence he gave the slogan of ‘ Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’.

Will the rulers in command of the country take the trouble of going through the tenure of Lal Bahadur Shastri  as a Minister in Nehru Government and later as Prime Minister of India to learn a lesson or two from his life, perhaps not?

~R. K. Sinha

Blind Govt. And Monkey Justice

AKHILESH YADAV, CM, UP

DURGA SAKTI NAGPAL, SUSPENDED IAS OFFICER

There cannot be a better example of a government that is blind and a government who believe in monkey justice system than the Government of Uttar Pradesh headed by Akhilesh Yadav and run by his keens.

Akhilesh has maintained since beginning that the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Durga Shakti Nagpal, an IAS officer was suspended because she acted in prejudiced manner that threatened communal harmony in the area. What was her action that undermined communal peace? According chief minister and his uncle, the officer demolished the wall of a mosque in the area without giving any notice to the people who built the mosque. It now transpires that there is no mosque there as claimed by the chief minister. There is official report sent by the District Magistrate of NOIDA that confirms the non-existence of the mosque mentioned by the chief minister and his team. A wall was erected on a plot of land illegally. The SDM after receiving complaint from the plotter of the trap (Samajvadi Party leader) that there was illegal construction there. The SDM reached the place and spoke to the people of the locality. She counseled them and the people agreed to bring down the structure voluntarily. Where she demolished the wall in first place with bull dozer and where was the mosque?

The report submitted by the District Magistrate of Gautam Budha Nagar says that there was no communal tension and there was no mosque there.

Now, will the chief minister answer why he is blind to violent clashes between the Shias and the Sunnis in Lucknow for the past two days that has indeed disturbed communal peace right under his nose? Has the chief minister or his government taken any action against any officer for dereliction of duty in Lucknow? The answer is a big no.

Then why pick up an honest woman who was doing her job honestly? Why fabricate a case to trap and victimize the officer?

On an average the illegal mining of sand in the area fetches ill gotten money running into millions of rupees. A large slice of this money goes to the politicians in Lucknow. The sand mafia was threatened and their illicit business was closed.

What answer the chief minister has now?

The Centre woke up rather late and that too only after the case of the SDM sent nationwide shock waves. The whole country is outraged at the criminal conduct of the state government. First Union Minister Salman Khursheed said that the hands the Centre were tied. Now Narayansamy says New Delhi can act and the Centre can revoke the suspension after it receives a formal complaint from the victim, Durga Shakti that her suspension was wrong. Since the officer is from the Central Cadre of Indian Administrative Service, its parent authority is Department of Personnel under the Prime Minister of India.

The million rupee question is will the Manmohan Singh government undo the injustice done to Durga Shakti. Does the Congress and the government headed by it show the guts to respond to the call of justice at the risk of annoying Mulayam Singh Yadav? We eagerly wait for your call Mr Manmohan Singh.

~R. K. Sinha     

In Mafia Raj Honesty Is Worst Casualty

DURGA SAKTI NAGPAL, IAS

It is ‘mafia raj’. No matter what the Supreme Court observes, strong lobby of contractors with bagful of money have and will have their way in any state of the country. The Uttar Pradesh government headed by Akhilesh Yadav, son of Mulayam Singh Yadav has done the act in blatant violation of the apex court order not in letter but in spirit. A young IAS officer was victimized for doing her job honestly in NOIDA, Durga Shakti Nagpal, the Sub-Divisional Magistrate had seized trucks and dumpers of sand contractors who were illegally lifting sand from the bed of river Yamuna. She was suspended from service by the chief minister under the garb of ‘disturbing communal harmony’ in the state.

A wall of the mosque illegally constructed was demolished by the orders of the SDM. It was enough provocation or reason to remove the officer. There was no communal tension in the area as claimed by the government. On the contrary, the Police reported that everything was calm and there was no tension. Just a few days before sacking Durga, the U P Government had removed the mining officer of the area for checking illegal mining of sand.

Hardly, the ink had dried on the suspension order of the SDM, the mafia has returned to the bed of Yamuna with more than 200 trucks and dumpers. The business has resumed and so has the supply of money to Lucknow.

It is an old story. No upright officer posted in NOIDA or Greater NOIDA survives his term of three years in office. He or she is shifted within months of joining if the officer tries to enforce rules and check illegal land dealings and settlement. Any attempt to check illegal mining is also frustrated by the state government.

How one can expect the country to have good governance when the government connives with criminals and mafias?

True to its characters, the Congress has preferred to maintain ‘silence’ on the suspension of the officer and on illegal mining of sand in the area. How can Congress speak against corruption? The Party has always encouraged corrupt practices in the government and has helped people to make fortunes by doling out favours be it increasing the price of natural gas or petrol to private players.

See what Salman Khursheed, a senior Congress minister said on the issue. According to Khrusheed, the hands of the government are tied. Can he say that the hands of the Congress are also chained? Well, it is entirely under the purview of the state government to appoint, transfer and suspend its officials. The Centre can’t intervene. But the Congress Party has no restriction on speaking out its mind on an issue that has generated a national debate and outrage. Why can’t the Congress condemn the illegal mining which is a serious threat to environment? The platitudes of its ministers at world environment conferences showing concern about the global warming and environmental pollution sound hollow.   

Everything has a price. The silence of the Congress leaders on illegal mining can be attributed to its policy of appeasement to regional satraps. The UPA Government and the Congress Party will not attack Mulayam Singh since they need his political support now and may be in the future. Already, the government is trying to influence the CBI which is investigating the Disproportionate Assets case against Mulyam Singh to give the Samajvadi Party leader a clean chit in the case. How can it criticize the UP Government for a ‘small thing like illegal sand mining”?

~R. K. Sinha 

Batla House: Whipping Communal Passion

Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma after injured

A court judgment is open to discussion but it cannot be a tool to whip up communal passion that divides Indians. If a section of people including politicians, social and human rights activists and journalists think that the encounter at Batla House was fake and stage managed and that the accused Shahzad was not present when the incident took place, the activists can challenge the decision of the court. The trial court judgment is open to review in the High Court and in the Supreme Court. The accused has the opportunity to seek redress if the verdict is not correct. Where is the occasion to whip up communal passion amongst the minorities and hammer the point that the police and the prosecution are regular offenders of booking innocent people on charges of terrorism in the country?

Such innuendo would only alienate the minorities further from the mainstream and force them to react and even retaliate in a manner that would aggravate terrorism in India. Those people who are masquerading as the champions of the Muslims flaunting their tags of secularism are in fact harming the cause of the minorities in particular and the country in general.

One can debate a court order or judgment but one can’t question the verdict. The merit of the judgment can be questioned and challenged only in a court of law at higher level.

Some activists argue that the entire encounter was stage managed. Because the slain inspector did not wear a bullet proof jacket showed that the raiding team of Delhi Police knew that people in the flat of Batla House were not ‘terrorists’. The police have explained its position and there is no point in repeating the same.

If one goes by the view of the activists and some Congress leaders that the people hiding in the flat were innocent then question arises who killed Inspector Sharma and grievously injured two more policemen in the firing? Some cynics went out to say that Sharma was killed by his own colleagues. If Policemen killed Sharma then this fact would have come out within days of the shootout at Batla House. Such things cannot be hidden for long. There were and there are many Police officers who would have leaked this operation to assassinate Sharma. If some Police officer wanted to eliminate their colleagues there were other methods to do so. Who knows better than the Police? Why stage a fake encounter in the heart of the capital?

It is ridiculous to suggest that it was a fake encounter at Batla House.

Again, if the Police erred in killing innocent people in the shootout, why the Congress led UPA Government did not book the Police officers guilty of killing innocent people in the guise of terrorists? The Delhi Police is directly under the control of the Centre, the Home Ministry to be precise. Why the then Home Minister Shivraj Patil did not order an inquiry into the incident?

After the trial court verdict in the case, P Chidambaram, a senior Minister of the Manmohan Singh Government is on record saying that the encounter was genuine and that those killed in the shootout were terrorists. But it is typical style of the Congress to allow its leaders to play Dr Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, the characters of the Novel written in 19^th Century by famous writer Robert Louis Stevenson. The senior Congress leaders like Digvijay Singh and Ministers like Rahman Khan and Salman Khursheed contradict the government and Chidambaram on the Batla House case.  Singh still maintains that the encounter was stage managed. Whom the Congress is fooling?

~R. K. Sinha

 

Attack on Mumbai Restaurant Is Attack on Freedom of Speech & Expression: Reminds Emergency Days

Coffee is a stimulant. In India, Coffee House and Tea Shop have been centres of intellectual activism for decades. But establishment of the day never likes the thinking class to think and stimulate discourse or debate the ills of the government and raise voice of dissent.

In Mumbai, it is not a coffee house but a restaurant that attracted the ire of the Congress Party not because the eating joint was an ‘adda’ (hub) of thinkers and intellectuals who discussed and debated the current political situation in the country. It is like any other restaurant where people go for eating vegetarian meals and snacks.

The crime of the owner of the restaurant was that he started thinking and reacting to the performance of the UPA Government at the Centre intelligently. The bill of Aditi Restaurant in Mumbai carried a line as a pun on the UPA- “AS PER UPA GOVT. EATING MONEY (2G, COAL, CWG SCAM) IS A NECESSITY & EATING FOOD IN AC RESTAURANT IS A LUXURY”

The restaurant owner was peeved to find that those who eat in an air conditioned restaurant pay more by way of taxes. Aditi or for that matter majority of restaurants in Mumbai are air conditioned because of humid weather condition.

The printed bill was enough provocation for the Youth Congress activists who attacked the eating joint on Tuesday, July 23, 2013. The Maharashtra Government instead of booking the Youth Congress activists for vandalism registered a case of defamation against the restaurant owner. Defaming whom, the UPA Government. Does the government of the day have any fame to lose?

The intolerance of the Congress reminds me of the Emergency days. There used to be a Coffee House in Connaught Place of Delhi, quite famous and popular. For, it was the host of Delhi’s thinking class, writers, poets, journalists, jurists and political activists. The Congress then took the view that the Delhi Coffee House had become a centre of discourse of a class of people who were spreading dissent and encouraging rebellion against the government and against Indira Gandhi in particular who was Prime Minister. At the behest of Sanjay Gandhi, the Coffee House was closed and during the Emergency in 1975 the structure was demolished. Delhi lost its landmark and thinking class its hub.

Many years later the Coffee Board of India opened its outlet on Baba Kharag Singh Marg on the lane that houses State Emporiums. But it never replaced the old Coffee House that carried a distinct aura and ambiance besides its special clientele.

I remember another Coffee House in Patna on New Dak Bungalow Road. In early 1970s the Coffee Board of India opened a new air conditioned Coffee House, with state of the art interiors and furniture. It served delicious Dosa, Vada, Idly, Uthapams etc at reasonable rates. Its coffee had aroma and taste that has not been lost on me and many others who were regular visitor to this joint even after decades of its closure.

In those years there were very few air conditioned restaurant in Patna and there was no tea or coffee shop there that was air conditioned. So, the Coffee House attracted the intelligentsia- writers, poets, journalists, lawyers and politicians. I too was a regular visitor to the Patna Coffee House.

I used to find some big names entering the Coffee House. Jaya Prakash Narain was one of them. JP would spend few hours there chatting and discussing the situation in the country. Poet, Phaniswar Nath Renu and poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar were also regulars to the Coffee House. So were leaders like Mahamaya Prasad Sinha, Dr Purnendu Narain Sinha, Abdul Ghafoor etc.

The Coffee House closed because the government did not want it to run. The Coffee Board of India stopped taking interest in running the joint. Its furniture was getting worn out but was not replaced, its air conditioning plant stopped working and its food lost delicacy. The aroma of ‘coffee’ was gone. And with that the Patna Coffee House was shut down for ever.

~R. K. Sinha

   

Merchants of Death II- Bihar Officials Hands Stained In Blood

There is no change in the ground situation in Bihar even after ten days of the tragedy in which 23 school children died of poisoned food. Reports from Bihar suggest that the midday meals continue to be unfit and unhygienic that children eat in schools. The least the government should have done was to examine stocks of cereals and edible oil stored in schools for the midday meals; throw and destroy the rotten and contaminated materials immediately. The government should close all kitchens in schools till good quality food grains, edible oil and pulses are bought and supplied to schools under strict supervision. In many schools children have stopped eating midday meals. Many students have stopped going to schools and those who attend classes bring their own home cooked Tiffin.

The state government seems busy in conducting inquiry into the incident. Initial forensic reports confirm presence of poisonous substance in the oil used in cooking of meals on July 9 2013 in the school.

Latest reports from Bihar on the state of affairs in the state are shocking again. The government surrendered a huge amount of Rs. 462 crores to the Centre that was granted for building kitchens and buying utensils for the midday meal scheme. What face the Bihar Government has now to defend itself. It is a big amount that could have provided hygienic cooking conditions in  well equipped school kitchen.

The money was surrendered because the officials who were supposed to disburse the amount perhaps failed strike deal with education department staff for cut on the amount that would go to particular village or district.

According to a newspaper report, the state government sat on the fund for five years without spending a single rupee on upgrading the school kitchens in the state.

I am not surprised if other States in the country too failed to utilize the money for upgrading the school kitchens for midday meal scheme. Visuals shown on television news channels are a clear proof of criminal negligence in so much so that in majority of the schools in various states across the country meals are cooked most unhygienic conditions besides using rotten and substandard materials to cook the meals.

Coming close to the hills of children killed and taken ill after eating midday meals, in the national capital Delhi, children are taken ill after consuming iron and folic acid supplements given free by the Delhi Government. It is yet another racket of the government. Medicines worth crores of rupees must have been bought from wholesale dealers with a cut going to the pockets of the babus and the ministers. The Health Minister of Delhi says that it is normal to have side effects of iron and folic acid tablets at the initial stage. Once the body gets adjusted there will be no side effect of the medicines.

One has to verify if the medicines being supplied to school children are genuine and not spurious. If the medicines purchased from the market are not from the ‘expired lot’ with label changed to show new expiry dates. The government must reassure itself before continuing the scheme of iron and folic acid supplements for children.

~R. K. Sinha