On 20th April 1653 Oliver Cromwell entered the British Parliament and said to its members “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”
The same words can be repeated to Narendra Modi, who has been the Indian Prime Minister for 10 years.
After he became Chief Minister of Gujarat state in 2002 there was a massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in which he was definitely complicit, as this fitted in with his RSS ideology.
And ever since he became Prime Minister religious polarisation and communal hatred has increased exponentially, with numerous atrocities particularly against the Muslim minority in India. There have been numerous lynchings of Muslims by cow vigilantes for allegedly selling/eating beef, beating of Muslims for not saying ‘Jai Shri Ram’, and other atrocities and discrimination against them.
State institutions and many educational institutions were ‘saffronised’, and history and science perverted during his tenure as PM ( as was done by the Nazis in Germany ).
The intellect of the man can be gauged by his claim that there were head transplants, genetic engineering, stem cell technology, aeroplanes etc in ancient India
Taking his cue, BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur claimed that cow urine can cure cancer, and Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Dev claimed that ancient Indians had invented the internet. At the 106th Indian Science Congress in 2019, G. Nageshwar Rao, Vice Chancellor of Andhra University and Professor of Chemistry, claimed that ancient Hindus pioneered stem cell research, since 100 Kauravas were born of one mother because of knowledge of stem cell and test tube technology, that Vishnu used guided missiles, and that the King of Lanka, Ravana, had 24 kinds of aircraft. In the 105th Indian Science Congress in 2018 Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan claimed that the Hindu Vedas were superior to Einstein’s Theory of Gravity.
All this reminds us of the Nazi perversion of science by their racial theory, when a coterie of Nazi-affiliated physicists promoted the idea of a “German” or “Aryan” physics, opposed to a supposedly “Jewish” influence in the relativity and quantum theories.
Similarly, Modi’s government tried to pervert history, e.g. by branding Mughal era as foreign rule and slavery just because the Mughals were Muslims, when the truth is that Indians ( including Hindus ) prospered a lot during Mughal rule and became the richest country in the world, with over 25% of the word’s wealth. Emperor Akbar is, in my opinion, the real Father of the Indian Nation
Moreover, even assuming there was GDP growth, the question to be asked is who has got the fruits of such growth, a handful of big businessmen, or the Indian masses ? Under Modi’s rule a few Indian billionaires have become richer, while the poor have become poorer
One single fact is enough to demonstrate what calamity has been caused by Modi’s rule. Child malnutrition has increased, every second Indian child being malnourished, stunted and/or wasted. India, which was at position under 101 of the 125 countries surveyed, has slipped 6 positions in a few years to position number 107, according to Global Hunger Index, an internationally renowned agency studying hunger in the world, its situation worse than neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Srilanka.
Like Gen Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan, Modi made every effort to take india back into the middle ages, and convert India from a dejure secular, to a defacto theocratic state
The BJP came to power under Modi’s leadership in 2014 alleging massive corruption by the Congress. But after coming to power corruption became its cult, and increased exponentially, as the recent electoral bonds scandal disclosed
India has had enough of Mr Modi, and the time has now come for him to go. By bitter experience, the Indian people have seen through his frauds, dramas and empty rhetoric.
The Congress party has announced that Rahul Gandhi will undertake a ‘Bharat Nyaya Yatra‘ from Manipur to Mumbai from 14th January 2024 to 20th March, covering a distance of 6200 kms, passing through 14 states and 85 districts.
This Yatra is evidently with an eye on the coming 2024 Lok Sabha parliamentary elections.
Rahul Gandhi’s earlier Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanya Kumari to Srinagar from 7th September 2022 to 30th January 2023, covering about 4000 kms and passing through 12 states, and his Speeches In America about starting a ‘mohabbat ki dukan’ in a ‘nafrat ka bazaar’ were a flop show and a gimmick, despite all the fanfare and publicity, as they were followed by the defeat of the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh ( though it won in Telangana ).
The whole aim of the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi in all this is to get the large Muslim vote bank, for without that it has a bleak future. Congress, which was in power for several decades after Independence, feels like a fish out of water without power, and its corresponding loaves of office.
For a long time Muslims were Congress voters, but after demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 Muslims left Congress in UP, the largest state in India, and went over to the Samajwadi Party ( SP ), and in Bihar to Lalu Yadav’s RJD. Now the Congress is desperate to get them back.
The problem for the Congress is that other non-BJP parties also want the Muslim votes. For instance, the SP wants their votes in UP, and the RJD in Bihar. So seat sharing in the INDIA alliance of opposition parties will not be easy.
Also, when a party goes to the polls it must have something positive to offer to the people. The BJP has Hindutva to offer ( whatever its worth ). But the Congress has nothing to offer, except harping on secularism, which is only a euphemism for a desire to get Muslim votes.
The Bharat Nyaya Yatra has proclaimed its objective as ‘aarthik nyaya‘ ( economic justice ) and ‘rajnaitik nyaya‘ ( political justice ), which really means nothing. Everybody in India know that Indian politicians have no genuine desire to give Indians economic justice, but only seek their votes by making all kinds of tall promises to the people, when in fact all they seek is power and pelf.
Rahul Gandhi has no clue how to solve India’s huge economic problems, so all his talk of ‘aarthik nyaya’ is claptrap and hot air.
In India politics runs largely on the basis of caste and religious vote banks, and when most voters go to vote they forget economic issues like poverty, unemployment, price rise, etc and only see the candidate’s caste or religion ( or the caste or religion his party claims to represent ).
The skilfully manipulated media hype over the consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on 22nd January, and its inauguration on the 24th will certainly benefit the BJP, apart from the religious polarisation in recent years, in the coming elections.
I am afraid the Bharat Nyaya Yatra will be as much a stunt and a gimmick as the Bharat Jodo Yatra
All Indian politicians are panautis and pickpockets. They only seek power and pelf, and have no genuine love for the people’s welfare. They are mostly selfish rogues, rascals, looters, deceivers, and mafia type bandits, who have taken India to the verge of ruin.
In fact the worst panauti in our country is our parliamentary democracy and electoral politics, which runs largely on the basis of caste and religious vote banks ( as everyone knows ). Casteism and communalism are feudal forces, which have to be destroyed if India is to progress, but Parliamentary Democracy further entrenches them, as it largely runs on that basis.
Is Rahul Gandhi any less a panauti, a man who has only his arrogance of belonging to India’s ‘royal family’, but has nothing in his head about how to solve India’s huge problems of massive poverty, record and rising unemployment, appalling level of child malnourishment ( every second child in the country is malnourished, according to Global Hunger Index ), and almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for the masses ? And are any other of our politicians, who only have expertise in polarising the people, and spreading caste and communal hatred, any different ? They no doubt make a lot of tall promises to the people before elections, only to be forgotten once the elections are over.
Parliamentary elections of 2024 are fast approaching, and the BJP will no doubt step up religious polarisation. But our ‘secular’ parties will not be left far behind.
Nitish Kumar, who like the French politician Talleyrand kept changing sides, depending on which way the political wind was blowing, has played his gambit of the caste census, with an eye on the backward votes, and many of the other ‘secular’ parties have supported the move.
Owaisi is just the counterpart of the BJP, playing the Muslim card.
So what is the way out of this predicament for the Indian people ? I have explained in the articles below that the only way out is by waging a mighty, historical, united people’s struggle, rising above caste and religion, led by modern minded leaders, who are determined to create an alternative political and social system under which there is rapid industrialisation and modernisation, and all Indians get a high standard of living and decent lives.
The strong objection by the Congress and other opposition parties in India to use of the word Bharat instead of India in the invitations to dinner by the President of India to foreign leaders attending the G 20 Summit, shows the pathetic state of India’s opposition, and is really much ado about nothing.
” India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states ”.
Thus, the word Bharat has been used in the Indian Constitution and is not foreign to it, and one can use either the word India or Bharat at one’s option. So what is all the fuss about ?
Moreover, as I have repeatedly said, the test of every political activity is whether it raises the standard of living of the people, and gives them better lives. How does it affect the lives of the Indian people whether the country is called India or Bharat ? So the issue is really irrelevant.
The opposition parties, in raising such issues, appear more and more like a drowning man clutching at a straw.
Their alliance INDIA appears to be still born, with no announcement of a leader of the alliance or even of the Core Committee constituted by it in its recent Mumbai meeting, nor even the date of its next meeting. I have called the alliance a stunt
The alliance is totally confused over the recent statement of Tamilnadu Minister Udayanidhi Stalin who called Sanatan Dharma a disease which had to be eradicated. Some of its members have disassociated themselves from this statement, but none have condemned it, and Rahul Gandhi has not even referred to it.
With 80% of India’s population being Hindu, and most Hindus regarding Sanatan Dharma and Hinduism as synonymous, I dont see how the opposition can even retain the present number of its seats in the Lok Sabha after the 2024 parliamentary elections.
Rahul Gandhi”s recent speech in the Lok Sabha during the no confidence motion proceedings on Manipur is being hailed by some as historical, as if it were a speech of Demosthenes, Cicero, Daniel Webster, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill.or Martin Luther King Junior
In his speech Rahul talked a lot about his Bharat Jodo Yatra ( march to unite India ), which was really irrelevant since the no confidence motion pertained only to Manipur. I have earlier written about this Yatra and called it a gimmick.
Rahul then launched a furious and vociferous diatribe against the BJP Govt, accusing it of murdering India, and denouncing Prime Minister Modi as a traitor, a Ravan ( the demon king of Lanka whom Lord Ram killed ), who burnt his own kingdom by his ahankaar ( conceit ), and one who has thrown kerosene throughout India.
The motion of no confidence related to events in the state of Manipur, so instead of devoting most of his time speaking on his Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi should have utilised it in giving hard facts and figures relating to the Manipur ethnic violence. He should have spoken on how the Meitei-Kuki conflict originated, how it developed, what is the situation at present,. and how it can be resolved.
But instead what Rahul Gandhi did can only be described as grandstanding. He first indulged in self praise, mentioning how he walked from Kanyakumari in the south to Kashmir in the north, despite acute pain in his knee and enduring other hardships. He then said that India was a voice ( whatever that meant ) for which he was prepared to give his life. Finally, he launched his diatribe against Modi. And having ended his speech he immediately walked out, like Pontius Pilate who said ” What is truth ? ” and would not wait for a reply.
What was Rahul Gandhi’s real purpose in giving this speech ? One can only speculate, but these points occur to me : (1) Rahul’s aim is to become the leader of the Opposition, not just a mere member of the Opposition alliance called INDIA ( which has recently been formed ), so that he can later become the next Prime Minister of India (2) He wants the Muslim vote bank, which is particularly large in north India, and he wants it desparately in the forthcoming 2024 parliamentary elections.
I am no supporter of the BJP ( in fact I have often strongly criticised it for its communal politics ), but Rahul Gandhi seems to me to be an empty headed spoilt brat, who has no idea how to solve India’s massive socio-economic problems, but in whose head has been instilled the idea that he is the legitimate and rightful claimant to the throne of India as he belongs to the ruling dynasty.
He reminds me of that other clown, The Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and I am inclined to believe he will have a similar fate as that other buffoon.
SRINAGAR: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was disqualified from Lok Sabha, a day after his conviction in a defamation case by court in Surat, Gujarat.
The notification disqualifying the Wayanad MP was issued hours after Rahul attended Lok Sabha in the morning session
The Lok Sabha Secretariat issued a notification disqualifying the Wayanad MP from the house.
“Consequent upon his conviction by the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Surat, Shri Rahul Gandhi, Member of Lok Sabha representing the Wayanad Parliamentary Constituency of Kerala stands disqualified from the membership of Lok Sabha from the date of his conviction i.e. 23 March, 2023 in terms of the provisions of Article 102(1)(e) of the Constitution of India read with Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951,” the notification read.
Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh tweeted, “We will fight this battle both legally and politically. We will not be intimidated or silenced. Instead of a JPC into the PM-linked Adani Maha Mega Scam, Rahul Gandhi stands disqualified.Indian Democracy Om Shanti.”
SRINAGAR: Court in Gujarat’s Surat District on Thursday convicted Congress leader and MP Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case for his remarks “why all thieves share the Modi surname” made during a political campaign in Karol in April 2019, as per media reports.
India Today reported that the congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been sentenced to two years in jail in the defamation case against him. He was convicted by a Surat court on Thursday under Section 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The case was filed against the Congress MP in 2019 by a Gujarat BJP MLA over his “why all the thieves have Modi in their name” remark. In the complaint, the MLA, Purnesh Modi, said Rahul Gandhi defamed the entire Modi community with his statement.
After the court announced the sentence, Rahul Gandhi’s legal team filed a bail plea which was granted to the Congress MP, reports said.
SRINAGAR: In an interesting development, Delhi Police is seeking details of the statement Congress leader Rahul Gandhi made in Srinagar during the conclusion of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, more than three fortnights ago. A police team is visiting the Gandhi scion’s Delhi residence to seek information for a mandatory follow-up.
“Rahul Gandhi gave a statement in Srinagar on January 30 that during the Yatra he met several women and they told him that they had been raped,” Special CP Law and Order Sagar Preet Hooda told reporters outside Gandhi’s Delhi residence. “We are trying to get details from him so that justice can be given to victims”.
Hooda said it was important for the police to know whether any woman from Delhi eyed her message to Rahul Gandhi. “There might be a possibility of the involvement of minors also,” he said, insisting that, in that case, the law will have to take its own course. And justice can be delivered.
Police said they sent two notices to Gandhi on March 15 and March 16, seeking a meeting to gather the details. Police said they waited for hours to get a chance to meet the opposition leader.
“In one particular case, I asked a girl, she had been raped, I asked her should we call the police, she said that don’t call the police then I will be shamed,” Gandhi had said in Srinagar, according to the Delhi Police.
Congress has reacted by saying they will respond to the notices in due course f time. “We will respond to the notice in the due course per law,” Congress tweeted. “This notice is yet another proof of a govt in panic and their latest salvo to weaken democracy, women empowerment, freedom of expression and role of the opposition.”
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi while speaking at the prestigious Cambridge University said that he confronted militants during the Congress-led Bharat Jodo Yatra’s entry into Kashmir. Gandhi stated, according to a report from India Today, “I spoke to my people and expressed my desire to carry on walking. We kept going when an unidentified man came up to me. He said he wanted to speak with me.” Rahul Gandhi went on to say that the man questioned him as to whether or not the Congress leaders had actually travelled to the Union Territory to hear about the problems of the populace. Later, the man pointed to certain bystanders and claimed they were all militants. “I believed I was in danger because militants would likely kill me in such circumstances. Yet, they did nothing as a result of the power of listening,” Gandhi added.
Central Wool Development Board (CWDB) has approved a Rs 50 lakh project for creating a wool raw material bank in Jammu and Kashmir.
KASHMIR
Representational image
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) attached the house of banned al-Umar Mujahideen Chief Mushtaq Zargar in the Gani Mohalla area of the Nowhatta in Srinagar. NIA action comes as the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has declared Zargar, “presently in Pakistan”, as designated “terrorist” under the UAPA, a stringent act legislated to control militant activities. An NIA team, assisted by local police and paramilitary CRPF, attached Zargar’s property.. According to an NIA spokesperson, Zargar’s two marlas house (Khasra No 182) at Ganai Mohalla, Jamia Masjid, Nowhatta, Srinagar, has been attached under the provisions of UA(P)A. Zargar was arrested on May 15, 1992, and later “released” in 1999, along with Jaish chief Masood Azhar and Sheikh Omar in exchange for passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane IC-814 in 1999.
Earlier in the week, NIA also attached the property of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander Basit Reshi in Sopore. Reshi is a resident of Yemberzalwari Shiva Dangerpora and is presently in Pakistan. Pertinently, the Jammu and Kashmir police have started the process to attach properties of nearly 168 militants from Jammu and Kashmir who are operating from other the side of the LoC.
As per the New York-based internet advocacy watchdog, Access Now Jammu and Kashmir witnessed 49 internet disruptions in 2022 out of a total of 85 across India.
SRINAGAR
Jammu Kashmir LG, Manoj Sinha felicitating a young cadet of JK Police at PTS Kathua on March 3, 2023. Pic: DIPR
The Amarnath cave shrine that used to be open for pilgrimage for a short summer period may be accessible for a long period in a year as the LT Governor Manoj Sinha administration is planning to make it accessible by road. Sinha chaired a meeting of the officers and Border Roads Organization (BRO) in which the scope for undertaking the widening, restoration and maintenance of the stretch of the Amarnath Yatra track was discussed.
Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy has put the current unemployment percentage in Jammu and Kashmir at 17.1 against 21.8 in January 2023, indicating an appreciation of 4.7 per cent for the month of February 2023.
SRINAGAR
GMC Srinagar
The government has confirmed Prof Dr Masood Tanvir as the Principal of Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar. Dr Masood is head of the medicine department and was given the charge of GMC principal in November 2022, replacing Dr Samia Rashid.
National Investigation Agency (NIA) has issued a non-bailable warrant against 13 Kishtwar-based militants operating from across the border.
JAMMU
The Kashmir crisis is getting so serious that even Congressman and former Sadar-e-Riyasat of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir State, Dr Karan Singh is pitching for the restoration of the statehood along with the need for assembly polls which haven’t been held since 2014. Such a demand coming from Dr Singh is interesting because he presided over the state apparatus till 1956 during which the head of the state, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was deposed and imprisoned. Speaking at an event in Jammu, Dr Singh said that there is a lack of communication between the public and bureaucrats in Jammu and Kashmir. When asked to comment on the bifurcation of the erstwhile state into two Union Territories, Dr Singh said, “We should look ahead rather than looking back and added that the same remained his principle in life.” Replying to a question about taking back the regions of Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan, he said that it was not easy as the same could not be materialized without a war which only brings deaths and destruction.
Private Schools Association of Jammu and Kashmir (PSAJK) has urged the administration to exempt educational institutes from the ambit of property tax.
AWANTIPORE
Paramilitary CRPF showcased its bulletproof armoured vehicle, named CSRV (critical situation response vehicle) in the Padgampora encounter with militants. The all-terrain sophisticated CSRV is used for house interventions during encounters. “This acts like a force multiplier, in situations like narrow lanes and by-lanes where you need to sort of intervene in a room or house where a terrorist is held up,” IG CPRF (Kashmir Operations) MS Bhatia was quoted as saying. “This vehicle has a bulletproof Morcha. It has a hydraulic system and can be raised to the second floor of the house as well. It has steer and skid technology, it can revolve 360 degrees, in narrow lanes and by lanes, and it can enter easily.”
Jammu and Kashmir Police said that one of the two militants killed in the Padgampora was behind the killing of Sanjay Sharma who was mowed down in his Achan village, last week. And two of his brothers and parents had not migrated from the village in the 1990s. A bank security guard, Sanjay’s killing was the first attack on a Hindu civilian in Jammu and Kashmir in the last four months.
A preliminary census by Wular Lake Conservation and Management Authority (WCMA) has revealed that over 50,000 migratory birds have made their way to the famous Wular Lake in northern Kashmir.
KUNAN
Kunan (Kupwara) family protests in Srinagar on December 21, 2022, seeking whereabouts of their son, Abdul Rashid Dar
Exactly 75 days after going missing, the body of Abdul Rashid Dar of Kunan (Kupwara) was retrieved and handed back to his family. “In continuation to missing of Abdul Rashid Dar of Kunan area of Kupwara on December 16, 2022 today early in the morning a dead (the body was) recovered from Zurhama-PK Galli forests,” a police spokesperson said in a statement, adding, “The body was brought to SDH Kupwara where it was identified by the relatives of (the) missing person. After completing all medico-legal formalities including post-mortem by a team of doctors, he said, the body was handed over to the family members for burial. “Cognisance of the matter has been taken for further investigations,” he said, adding, “Further details will be shared.” At a presser, a police officer had said that the man was allegedly picked up by the army for questioning in connection with a militancy-related investigation. However, the officer said that he fled from custody. The family, which carried out a series of protests seeking the whereabouts of their ward, had allegedly that Dar picked up by the army for questioning. Dar was a driver.
LG Manoj Sinha said almost 40 per cent of the residential structures in urban and semi-urban areas in Jammu and Kashmir are exempted under the newly created property tax rules.
BAKSHI STADIUM
A group of more than 24 cyclists were flagged off in Srinagar for a race from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. The participants shall peddle the 3651 km length in Solo, Team of 2, Team of 4 with a cut-off time of 12 days, 10 days and 8 days respectively. The race route passes through 12 major states, three major metropolises and over 20 major cities. None of the cyclists was from Jammu and Kashmir. In Pune, Veeranarayan Kulkarni left on a cycle for Kashmir to make people aware of diabetes. He will be cycling a distance of 4,000 km in 40 days.
PULWAMA
Within days after a video showing Bilal Rather, a councillor of MC Pulwama, allegedly misbehaving with a doctor on duty at the District Hospital (DH) Pulwama, went viral, the district administration ordered an inquiry. ADC Pulwama is probing the incident. Rather was seen shouting at a doctor on duty, and even hurling the choicest abuses. After the incident, the staff of the hospital wrote to the administration detailing how a “few miscreants” accompanied a “mob” barged into the room and misbehaved with them. Hospital management also registered a police case against the identified miscreants.
KASHMIR
The thought process (L to R) in male and female brains. Graphics: Economist
India’s largest-ever dementia study has shown that Jammu and Kashmir has the highest prevalence of the condition, a report in a British newspaper said. Some 11 per cent of the region’s over-60 population have developed dementia, according to a joint study published by the University of Southern California and AIIMS-Delhi. “Since the study’s publication, experts have called for further research to establish whether a 26-year insurgency that has raged in Jammu and Kashmir could be a reason for the region’s high prevalence of dementia,” the report said. Earlier in 2019, a survey by Médecins Sans Frontières found 70 per cent of Kashmiri adults had witnessed the sudden or violent death of someone they knew, while the average adult living in the territory has experienced 7.7 traumatic events during their lifetime. “The association between trauma and dementia is a fast-growing area of research,” the report quoted Dr Katrin Seeher, a mental health specialist in the Brain Health Unit at the World Health Organisation, saying. “We do have more and more evidence that exposure to adversity, particularly in early childhood, changes our brain architecture and the ways the brain changes to deal with stress. We do see that early childhood adversity might be linked to later life dementia diagnosis.”
SRINAGAR: Speaking at prestigious Cambridge University, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi recounted confronting militants during the Congress-led Bharat Jodo Yatra’s entry into Jammu and Kashmir.
Gandhi stated, according to a report from India today, “I spoke to my people and expressed my desire to carry on walking. We kept going when an unidentified man came up to me. He said he wanted to speak with me.”
Rahul Gandhi went on to say that the man questioned him as to whether or not the Congress leaders had actually travelled to the Union Territory to hear about the problems of the populace.
Later, the man pointed to certain bystanders and claimed they were all militants, according to Rahul Gandhi.
“I believed I was in danger because militants would likely kill me in such circumstance. Yet, they did nothing as a result of the power of listening “Gandhi added.
Rahul Gandhi landed in the UK on Tuesday to begin his seven-day tour with a speech at Cambridge University. Along with that, he spoke with local Indian diaspora groups.
