The Taming of the Shrewd. Arvind Kejriwal: Getting Even With the Odd Chief Minister. The last month of 2015 was a trying month for the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi. Less than a year since its leader Arvind Kejriwal had swept the state’s Assembly polls to become Chief Minister with 67 legislators in a house of 70, delivering a blow to a BJP basking in the glow of its all-India victory just half a year earlier, the government found itself lurching from crisis to crisis. It was subjected to a scathing rebuke from the Judiciary over its inability to curb air pollution, an embarrassing raid was carried out by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that sealed the office of one of its key officers, nearly 200 of its bureaucrats went on a one-day strike, and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley filed a defamation suit against Kejriwal for making allegations that linked him with financial irregularities at the Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA).
The good old typewriter is history now, but the movie seems to have left an imprint on the Delhi government. On Ambedkar's disappointment with the final draft of India's Constitution - The Caravan. On 29 August 1947, a Draft Committee was formed to prepare a draft constitution under the chairmanship of BR Ambedkar. After almost three years of deliberation, on this day sixty-six years ago, India's Constitution was put into effect. In this excerpt from Arundhati Roy's essay in our March 2014 issue, 'The Doctor and the Saint,' Roy comments on the conflict Ambedkar faced, both within himself and with the newly formed Constituent Assembly, as he tried to draft a document "more enlightened than the society it was drafted for. " History has been unkind to Ambedkar.
First it contained him, and then it glorified him. It has made him India’s Leader of the Untouchables, the king of the ghetto. It has hidden away his writings. All the same, Ambedkar’s followers have kept his legacy alive in creative ways. Using the Constitution as a subversive object is one thing. This is not to suggest that writing a constitution cannot be a radical act. Forget Modi, Someone Else Is Running India's Show. As India’s politicians bicker, its Supreme Court judges are taking the lead in shaping policy. In the past six months, Indian courts doubled a tax on commercial vehicles entering Delhi, banned bullfighting and -- most controversially -- struck down a constitutional amendment that would give politicians a role in picking judges. Soon they will decide on the legality of 4G mobile-phone licenses and mining activities in the south. The speed at which India’s courts are handing down decisions contrasts with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s struggle to push major legislation through parliament, including a national sales tax.
The power of judges has also spawned a debate: Proponents view them as an antidote to India’s gridlock and a check on corrupt politicians, while detractors see a threat to democracy and a risk for investors. "There is too much concentration of power in judiciary because they are trying to do everything together," Deva said by phone. ‘Unique’ Power Diesel Cars. Business Standard Mobile Website. If Prime Minister Narendra Modi fails to live up to the expectations that he has raised, it will not be entirely his fault. After all, he has moderated his promises. The shining vision of India's future he outlined in early 2014 has been replaced by the - still inspiring - set of aspirations listed in the 2015 Budget.
A house for everyone by 2022, with 24-hour power, clean drinking water, a road and modern sanitation; one job per family, medical and skilling facilities close by, and much else of that nature. You cannot fault his targets, and you cannot fault his energy. If he seems to have little idea of how to get there, well, he was never asked for such details about implementation on the campaign trail, so it's a little late to complain now. The problem is that he is trying to drive the country to these oh-so-distant targets by 2022, but he still has the same old car with which to do it. And that system is the Indian government and its bureaucracy. Ground report: Why is Lalu so sombre despite a resounding victory? "Nayi shuruaat, naya prayaas". New beginnings, fresh efforts. Painted on the gareeb rath, the green coloured mini-bus of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, which, after a hectic election campaign, had now come to rest in Lalu Prasad Yadav's sprawling residence, the slogan summarised the astonishing turnaround made by the party and its 67-year-old chief.
Pummelled to just 22 seats in an assembly of 243 in the 2010 elections, the RJD has bounced back to become the single largest party in the house. It has won 80 seats, nine more than Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United, its partner in the Grand Alliance. The morning after the victory, however, Yadav wore a look of deep exhaustion. Supporters were pouring in, with marigold garlands. With some effort, eventually, he raised his voice. Lalu Prasad Yadav, the morning after the victory. But would sweets be enough to satisfy the party workers and supporters, particularly Yadavs, his caste men, who had been out of power for ten years? A different leader. In India, Many Voters May See Corruption as the Lesser Evil. From the counting room to the newsroom: How TV channels messed up the Bihar election results. Slow and steady still wins the race.
In the frantic world of TV news too. Arunabh Saikia Arunabh Saikia studied mechanical engineering, wanted to be a poet, but became a journalist. His short stories & essays occasionally get published in literary magazines. . | Nov 10, 2015 in Criticles, Featured | 2 Comments When Prannoy Roy called the Bihar elections in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at around 9 am last Sunday, a young bureaucrat was busy overseeing the counting process in a district headquarter, somewhere in western Bihar. He wasn’t, of course: he had just about got over counting the postal ballots, and begun counting votes registered on the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
Why did then Roy, one of India’s most experienced journalists and well-known psephologist, commit such a novice mistake? Source: NDTV’s Twitter timeline …on every Counting Day, like today, all news channels get data from one agency. We showed the BJP ahead – that’s what the data showed. No. Loading... Why Development in Bihar is About Social Justice. While it has now become a cliché to condemn Lalu Prasad Yadav for presiding over Bihar’s alleged descent into ‘casteist’ lawlessness from 1990 to 2005, his achievements cannot be overlooked RJD chief Lalu Prasad addressing a press conference at his party office in Patna on Saturday.
Credit: PTI Even as analysts debate the causes for the Mahagathbandhan’s astounding victory in the Bihar elections and explain the BJP’s debacle, they have continued to portray the contest as one of caste versus development. On the one hand, apologists for the National Democratic Alliance suggest that the social coalition crafted by the Grand Alliance of the Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress won the day, reflecting the victory of caste politics yet again. Throughout the electoral campaigns, the NDA had sought to appropriate the development plank, warning their constituencies of the return of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s so-called ‘jungle raj’ if the Mahagathbandhan were to come to power. Jinnah's Daughter | India Currents. Nehru and Jinnah had the same problem.
Their daughters loved men they did not approve of. Children of ambitious fathers, Indira and Dina, both, carried their fathers’ hopes and lived with their mothers’ pain. They were daughters who were raised in the mold of the young English ladies their fathers had gone to school with. Jinnah’s daughter, Dina was born in Britain and, like Indira, went to school there. What the girls did not know was that it was all fine and dandy to wear modern ideas but you don’t go to bed in them. Dina was born on the night between 14th and 15th August, 1919. When Dina was introduced to Neville Wadia she was 17 years old. Neville was born to a Parsee father and a Christian mother. Jinnah and RuttieJinnah, you see, was no stranger to love.
Photo: Courtesy Dr. Ruttie’s father, Sir Dinshaw Petit, a textile magnate and Jinnah’s client was horrified that his only child was marrying Jinnah, a man of another faith, and had forbidden them from meeting each other. An open letter to Anupam Kher: ‘Where were you when…’ is a lazy argument to make. Why should our silences of the past disqualify us from ever speaking again?
Abhinandan Sekhri Founding partner of Small Screen and newslaundry, Abhinandan Sekhri was a researcher at Newstrack and went on to become a reporter, always managing to do the story that was dropped. He scripted the political satire shows The Great Indian Tamasha and Gustakhi Maaf on NDTV’s news channels between 2004 and 2009. So he thinks he’s funny. . | Nov 2, 2015 in Criticles, Featured | 126 Comments Dear Mr Kher, It pained me to read about you being booed during a debate in Mumbai when you spoke your mind about freedom of speech in the context of the many artistes, scientists and writers returning their awards, protesting against what they feel is a climate of intolerance. Almost all the films that I associate my growing years with had you playing a major part. This article is made possible because of Newslaundry's subscribers.Click here and Pay To Keep News Free Also, times change. Warmly, Abhinandan Sekhri. Perceptions matter: It’s no coincidence that the narrative of rising intolerance has been peaking around elections.
It has been some months now since news reports of attacks on churches in India disappeared from the headlines. And thank goodness for that! Yet, for a while late last year and early this year, such reports had seemed to dominate the news, at least in the mainstream English media if not in its much larger vernacular cousins nationwide. In hindsight, it can be useful to examine what happened, as well as assess other allegations and reports of intolerance that have now taken centre stage. Did the reports of church attacks fade away because, as Vatican Radio reported in May, after many months “prominent Christian leaders (felt the government was finally showing) genuine concern over attacks on the minority community”, causing a sudden cessation of violence?
Or was it the case, as argued by many equally prominent voices, that a handful of isolated incidents, some of which were clearly not of a communal nature, had been played up into something worse? The writer is a BJD Lok Sabha MP. Cool Idea, Sloppy Plans | Tehelka - Investigations, Latest News, Politics, Analysis, Blogs, Culture, Photos, Videos, Podcasts. The Alibis of a Chief Executive. In India, an entire industry is busy creating excuses to defend the Prime Minister from various misdemeanours by his associates Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Credit: PTI Amongst democracies, only in India is it possible that an elected Prime Minister has a set of fool-proof alibis that protect him from taking responsibility for the events taking place in various parts of the country. Our federal structure, the actions of so-called ‘fringe elements’, or unruly coalition partners – one or the other is deployed time and again to insulate the chief executive of the country from all blame. Therefore, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks up only to ask how the Centre is responsible for the shameful events in Dadri or Mumbai, it comes as a surprise to none. Many analysts have rightly compared US President Barack Obama’s outright condemnations of every event of gun violence with his good friend Narendra Modi’s obfuscatory remarks that came after a long spell of studied silence. This isn’t how you use data: A data-backed response to Rupa Subramanya.
Subramanya, the young researchers argue, is already convinced of a conclusion, which she wants to support through any convenient digits. | Oct 21, 2015 in Criticles | 44 Comments As we write this, there are already reports in the media about another incident of mob-lynching over the bovine issue, this time in Himachal Pradesh. Many Indian litterateurs and public intellectuals have returned their awards as a mark of protest against the growing atmosphere of cultural and religious intolerance and the lackadaisical approach of the government to deal with the menace of majoritarian communalism. Many members of parliament, and at least one chief minister, have given extremely disturbing and dangerous statements attacking the very root of a democratic and secular republic called India. In fact, if one goes by the intention of the chief minister of Haryana, citizenship itself appears to be turning hierarchical (oxymoronic as it may sound). There are some other points that Subramanya makes.
Can communal riots be addressed with statistics? We must fight the intangible intolerance that makes it heroic to kill for no reason other than difference of thought and belief. Madhu Trehan Madhu Trehan is the founding editor of India Today, founder of Newstrack, senior journalist and writer, and also founding partner of newslaundry.
She found the time to author the book - “Prism Me a Lie Tell Me A Truth, Tehelka As a Metaphor”. No. . | Oct 19, 2015 in Criticles | 34 Comments After reading Rupa Subramanya’s article does the reader feel reassured? Rupa writes, “As I’ve shown, there’s absolutely no statistical basis on which to make such an assertion. So, if we apply the same logic, if you read there is a decrease in communal violence (or even if the numbers have remained constant) that too is driven not by fact but by propaganda? Yes, our country has been through years of communal riots. Rupa’s article states that there have been communal riots in the past but nobody blamed the Prime Minister.
. (90 votes, average: 3.14 out of 5) Loading... Has Lok Sabha TV Become a Mouthpiece for the Government? After the Lok Sabha TV (LSTV) channel was launched in 2006, my bureaucrat father would often call home during parliament sessions, ask us to switch the television on, play the channel and leave the telephone receiver next to the television. He would then listen to the proceedings for hours. LSTV—conceived of by the former Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Somnath Chatterjee as an instrument to acquaint citizens with the functioning of the parliament—was meant for such dedicated viewership.
As Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, a former consultant for LSTV who was an anchor for the shows Talktime and 1-on-One on the channel from March 2007 to 2015, told me, “The channel was never market-driven. And it was unique in the sense that it was owned by the lower house. It was supposed to be didactic, informative and educative, unlike the screaming on private news channels.” A senior official at the channel reaffirmed this to me over the phone. The senior LSTV official echoed Ghose’s comments.