Tuesday | 16th April 2024
Modi calls INDIA arrogant; says Constitution made him PM
BJP’s lead campaigner Narendra Modi on Tuesday, 16th April, said this election was to punish those who were against India’s Constitution and opposing the Centre’s efforts to make the country a ‘Viksit Bharat’. He accused the opposition leaders, including those of the RJD and the Congress, of playing politics with the Constitution, in a speech PTI described as a blistering attack.
Speaking at an election rally in Bihar’s Gaya district, the PM said, “This election is only to punish ‘Ghamandia’ (arrogant) alliance leaders. It is to punish those who are against the Constitution and opposing the Centre’s initiatives to make India a ‘Viksit Bharat’ (developed India).” Bihar’s former chief minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) founder Jitan Ram Manjhi is contesting from Gaya as an NDA nominee.
“The Congress and its partners are resorting to lies in the name of the Constitution just to abuse me. The NDA respects the Constitution…even Babasaheb Ambedkar can’t change this…The Constitution, given by Babasaheb and Dr Rajendra Prasad, has made me the PM. I come from a poor family…,” he said. The prime minister alleged that the opposition leaders are “against the celebration of Constitution Day”.
“They (opposition leaders) are playing politics with the Constitution. For us, the Constitution is a matter of ‘aastha’. People of the country have decided to give NDA 400 plus seats this time,” he said.
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Modi lacks the understanding needed to run the country, says Rahul
Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him an instrument of the rich and accusing him of helping a few rich businessmen in the country. Gandhi also attacked Modi over the electoral bond issue, terming it as a form of extortion, and said that was how Adani got Mumbai airport from its previous owner.
Modi is helping “five or six of the biggest, richest businessmen” in India, he alleged. He claimed that Modi has given around Rs 16 lakh crores to 20-25 people in the country. “But he does not talk of the issues farmers are facing in the country, the unemployment or the price rise,” Gandhi said The Congress leader said that since Modi was giving away money to a few rich people in the country, his party has decided to give money to the poor when it comes to power.
Later, speaking in Wayanad, Gandhi alleged that Modi “does not have the understanding to run the country”.
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BJP’s lead campaigner Narendra Modi accused the Congress in Kerala of striking a deal with a party whose parent organisation has been banned, a reference to the support extended by the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). While its parent organisation, the Popular Front of India, was banned in September 2022, the SDPI continues to be a legal entity.
“The Congress has made backdoor agreements with an organisation that has been banned for anti-national activities,” Modi said, alluding to the SDPI. He noted that he was the common target for the Left and the Congress. “They formed the INDI alliance because they know that Modi will demolish their sources of loot. So their target is Modi.”
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said the country had been pushed towards black money in elections after the Supreme Court scrapped the electoral bonds scheme, and that upon honest reflection, “everyone will regret it”.
In his first detailed take on the electoral bonds scheme after it was scrapped, Mr. Modi, in an interview to the news agency ANI, said that the scheme should also be viewed as a success story as it had shown who made contributions to political parties.
He said there was a lot of scope for improvement in the scheme. “There has been a discussion in our country for a long time that [through] black money a dangerous game is there in elections. I wanted that we try something, how can our elections be free from this black money, how can there be transparency? There was a pure thought in my mind. We were looking for a way. We found a small way, we never claimed that this was the absolute way,” he said.
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“It is a casteist and communal government. But people are cautious this time. It (the BJP) will not return to power this time if free and fair elections are conducted and if the voting machines are not manipulated,” BSP chief Mayawati said.
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New research links monsoons and invasions
Nine of 11 invasions on the Indian subcontinent between the 6th century BC and the 16th century AD, including Babur’s arrival to found the Mughal empire, occurred during phases of good Indian monsoon, reports The Telegraph citing a new study.
Naveen Gandhi, a specialist in ancient climate at the IITM, who led the project, used tree rings in Kerala to reconstruct the monsoon’s behaviour from 1484 AD to 2003 AD. The team also referred to mineral data from two caves in Dandak (Madhya Pradesh) and Kadapa (Andhra Pradesh), and from caves in Iraq, Iran and Uzbekistan to reconstruct a 10,000-year timeline of the monsoon.
Their analysis, when combined with information in history textbooks, has indicated that nine of 11 invasions on the continent occurred during phases of good monsoon. The arrival of Cyrus the Great in the 6th century AD, the Umayyad Caliphate in the 8th century AD, Mahmud of Ghazni in 1001 AD, Mohammad Ghori in 1175-85, and Bakhtiyar Khilji from 1197 to 1206 had all coincided with abundant rainfall. Many of these invasions also occurred during poor rainfall over central Asia, the study has found.
Narratives of the Day
The Telegraph: Temple keeps Modi afloat amid sea of unemployment
The findings of a recent pre-poll survey by CSDS-Lokniti indicated that one of the principal reasons for disenchantment among those opposed to re-electing the Narendra Modi government to power is the state of the economy. Two out of three respondents critical of Mr Modi’s regime referred to rising unemployment and inflation and falling income under Mr Modi’s watch.
But it appears that Mr Modi and his party can afford to tide over the choppy waters of the economy on account of their ability to conflate, in a manner of speaking, the Church and the State. The steps to consolidate what the BJP claims is the Hindu identity, the instrumental use of polarisation, and the consecration and building of the Ram temple, have, the survey suggests, insulated the regime from a possible public backlash on account of its poor performance in resolving economic challenges.
Perceptions seem to be in Mr Modi’s favour too. For instance, the prime minister’s claim, supported by a propaganda blitzkrieg, of an improvement in India’s international stature has found many takers. The survey’s identification of collective ambivalence towards caste census and the revocation of Article 370 in Kashmir could tilt the scales further in the BJP’s favour.
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‘For BJP, guarantee is precarity, welfare is self care’
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) years are often, in mainstream media, lauded as years with a generous welfare agenda. But do budgetary allocations in the Union Budget corroborate this assessment, ask Reetika Khera and Mohd. Asjad in The Hindu.
Some have contrasted the UPA with the NDA, where private goods (toilets, LPG cylinder and water connections, housing) are provided by the government, and have labelled this “new welfarism”. However, several of these schemes existed in the UPA years, with different names (Swachh Bharat was Nirmal Bharat, PM-Awas was Indira Awaas, and so on) and lower budgets. After 2014, the UPA schemes continue with new names (e.g., MDM is Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman, or PM POSHAN, and the PDS is Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, or PMGKAY).
The NDA schemes follow a saturation approach that allows an element of ‘self-targeting’. Only those who do not have a toilet or ‘pucca’ room or LPG connection, are eligible. Once they receive it, others get a chance. In the case of the UPA’s benefits, entitled people get benefits enshrined in the laws on a yearly (100 days of work for rural families), monthly (PDS grains) or daily (meals in schools and at anganwadis) basis. Here too, there is some self-targeting — only those who cannot get work at higher wages than NREGA show up for it and children in government schools and angwandis tend to be from poorer families.
In contrast to the NDA schemes, none of which are legal entitlements, the UPA benefits are enshrined in the law. So, it is not easy to defund them entirely. The NDA schemes, therefore, are much more like ‘freebies’ dependant on the whims of the government. Legal compulsions notwithstanding, the UPA schemes, especially those for children (school meals and the ICDS) suffered budgetary neglect under the NDA (middle line). Their share declined gradually from around 1.5% of GDP in 2014 to 1% of GDP in 2018-19. Then, the pandemic forced the government to ramp it up.
Facts aside, the current expanded coverage of 800 million through the PDS that a UPA legislation (the NFSA 2013) enabled, is now associated much more with the BJP than the Congress. This is astonishing because the NDA’s failure to conduct the 2021 Census has excluded millions from the PDS. Estimates based on population projections show that applying NFSA mandated coverage ratios (50% in urban and 75% in rural areas) to the 2021 population would have added more than 100 million to the PDS.
The NDA government has managed to build a reputation as a big welfare spender by renaming pre-existing programmes (MDM/POSHAN, PDS/PMGKAY), while underfunding them without any compensatory social assistance of its own. In an Orwellian world, “war is peace”, “freedom is slavery”, so under the NDA’s, “guarantee is precarity” and “welfare is self-care”.
Germany ‘watching Indian election with admiration’
Germany is observing with admiration the world’s biggest elections starting in India on April 19, and no matter who wins “more of India” will be seen on the international stage., the country’s Ambassador Philipp Ackermann has said. Addressing a gathering at an event hosted by O.P. Jindal Global university on 15th April, he also said the Indian Presidency of the G20 “gave us a little taste of that”.
The German ambassador said it is a role “India deserves”, like no other country. “But it is a role, one should not forget that comes with high hopes also. More than ever, India will be assessed by many. Not only the countries of the so-called ‘Global South’, but its international appearance and policies will be vetted,” Ackermann said.