VOX POPULI
by
S Kamat
as
Aam Admi
Issue: 191 Date: 06.03.2017
Contents:
1. Modi Shooting Off His Mouth Again
2. Playing Footsie With The GDP
3. Crimes Against Women In Kerala
Modi Shooting Off His Mouth Again
Narendra Modi takes off at most times without
doubly checking his facts which does not behove a Prime Minister. This is being
stated in the context of his 'coconut juice' remark made to mock Rahul Gandhi's
purported remark made in Manipur which pertained to oranges and pineapples the
main fruit produce of the State. I am not a great supporter or any kind of
sympathiser of the Congress or Rahul Gandhi but feel a PM should behave as one.
Maybe this is part of the BJP tradition which Amit Shah explained after the
2014 elections that whatever they say during election times is not to be taken
seriously, which covers the promises they make including their manifestos! The
'coconut juice' remark is also an insult to the peoples of the Western coast
mostly Kerala and Goa who use the juice in their cooking and shows the
shallowness of knowledge of Modi in coconut matters. Maybe he needs to check
his facts before he opens his mouth to avoid such gaffes and bloopers which is
turning out to be a BJP cornerstone in public life.
Playing Footsie With The GDP
Narendra Modi lacks the maturity that is required
to lead a country and put it on a stable path. The impression that he gives is
that of a 'man in a hurry' with a penchant to throw around red herrings
and resort to diversionary tactics to take away attention on some critical
issue that is seizing the public mind. Many are the examples for this kind of
behaviour by Modi but the latest in the long list is the quoting of GDP figures
at an election rally in UP to an audience that probably does not even know
the G of GDP. It is not that Modi should not educate such audiences or bring
them up to a common knowledge base, but seeking applause for claiming that the
GDP growth of 7% proved the sceptics about demonetisation wrong is a bit too
much. Modi is quick to pounce upon the first silver lining in the dark clouds
of demonetisation but finds it convenient to forget the extreme negatives of
the measures like the number of deaths that occurred due to the paucity of
cash, daily wage workers thrown out of work, micro-finance severely affected,
small industries that depend on cash unable to continue operations or
having to close down because of their inability to pay suppliers used to cash
transactions etc. etc. Thus
seeking plaudits for the GDP growth is deplorable more so when the figures
are clearly in doubt and the credibility of the CSO more than suspect. When
every sector of the economy has been reporting bad results in the Oct - Dec
2016 quarter one cannot understand how an aggregation of these sectors that
comprises the GDP can show such growth. The agriculture sector growth is
understandable coming on the back of a good monsoon but even there a 6% growth
seems to be still inflated. For close to two decades now agricultural
growth has not exceeded 4% so in a particular crucial quarter how could it be
6%! There is a need to verify these
figures is what all self-respecting economists have said but then Modi has
already branded them as the 'Harvard kind'. This is just like Donald Trump who
classifies all opinion not supportive of his positions as anti-national or
'corporatised' going to the extent of banning the big names in media from his
last press conference calling them the projectors of 'false or paid' news.
However we need to understand that there is a serious need in India to
restore credibiliy to our economic indices for which the CSO should bring out a
White Paper explaining the basis for calculation of each indice and the base
years that are used in the computations. Otherwise we will continue to have
these situations where with the Min. of Finance and the RBI putting out figures
for GDP below 7% anticipating the impact of demonetisation, we have the CSO
suddenly piping up with a figure in excess of 7%.
Crimes Against Women In Kerala
In the recent case of the Malayalam actress
having been unfortunately accosted and raped while going by road near Allepey
in Kerala one needs to comment on some of the English national print press’
inability to respect the confidentiality of the victim as enjoined by law.
While one English national paper reported the police officers handling the case
saying that as per law they could not disclose the identity of the victim
another paper supposedly the more reputed and considered the Grand Old Lady of
Bori Bunder splashed the name of the actress in headlines in its Supplement of
the day’s edition. This is rather sad since we are at this time talking about
censorship and freedom of speech with the media claiming that it is mature
enough to do self-censorship and the leading English paper of the nation as it
claims to be goes ahead and commits this kind of a gaffe! Whether it was
deliberate or by mistake, one needs to verify.
That apart on this case one would think that
the film community at large and particularly in Kerala seem to thrive on such
incidents and challenge themselves in handling it as a public relations
exercise including the victim in this case which one must say is quite spirited
on their part but not very recommended to the rest of society in the event of
their falling into a similar predicament.
The other thing that one is not able to
understand is Kerala with the highest literacy and political consciousness in
India has these random cases come up from time to time wherein the woman is
treated abjectly and is the subject of serial rape over a period of time from
all categories of men including politicians. Normally with low literacy and
with illiterate people one expects crimes against women to be on the increase
and the handling of women with depravity but somehow in Kerala it seems to be
the opposite.
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