VOX POPULI
by
S Kamat
as
Aam Admi
Issue: 284 Date: 03.06.2019
Contents:
1. The Ushering Of Modi 2.0
2. Rahul Gandhi's Habit Of Dithering
3. The Three Services Of Our Defence Forces Need To Be Tightened
4. The Argentinian Coach Better Pull Up His Socks Before Copa America
The Ushering Of Modi 2.0
After Modi's victory the swearing in of him as Prime Minister and the other Ministers has gone off smoothly. The allocation of portfolios has also gone through without any major problem except for the grumbling of the JD(U) refusing to join the ministry because they felt shortchanged in the importance and the number of ministries offered to them. The Cabinet shows off a new look with the principal entrant Amit Shah as Home Minister that required a juggling of ministries of finance and defence between Rajnath Singh and Nirmala Sitharaman, with the latter finding herself ejected from defence and landing herself into the hot seat of the Finance Ministry. That Arun Jaitley opted out was nothing new since if he had demurred any further, he would have been found holding the sack what with the economy being the major non-performer in Modi's first term. Other ministers were thrown out for much lesser reasons. Whether Nirmala Sitharaman can do justice to the portfolio is something that we will have to see since she is qualified for the job but a bit raw as a Parliamentarian. Again there have been comments that putting her in the Finance Ministry was with the intention for the PMO to drive the ministry. Such comments cannot be discounted since in the Rafael debate in Parliament we saw her as Defence Minister bringing in the tail rather than front-ending the debate with even busybody Arun Jaitley upstaging her in the queue to speak. But where she lacks in these areas one must say that she makes up with her commitment and application to the task in hand and one wishes her all the best. The new entrant into the ministry in a Jack-in-the-Box mode is S Jayashankar who has all the credentials but the jump from backroom boy to front end the Foreign Ministry will need some getting used to. Here again Jayashankar will look up to the PMO for guidance on party matters and manuevering work through Parliament. The mandate that Modi and the BJP has got enjoins an onerous responsibility and the combination of Modi as Prime Minister and Amit Shah as Home Minister again brings back unsavoury memories of the turn of the 21st century in Gujarat where the duo were in charge in similar tandem fashion and we had the unexplained murders of Haren Pandya and the encounter killings of Sohrabuddin and Ishrat Jahan. One just hopes that emboldened by the massive mandate Modi and Amit Shah will not unleash a series of excesses on the citizens of India.
Rahul Gandhi's Habit Of Dithering
Rahul Gandhi's dithering on his resignation as Congress Party President needs to stop. He needs to show more maturity. Not so far back into the past a similar situation had arisen on the issue of whether he would involve in politics full-time or indulge in it as a spectator. Thankfully that issue was conclusively put to rest when he took over the mantle of party president. In that role he has conducted a credible performance and ran a very creditable Lok Sabha election campaign. Over the duration of the rather long drawn out campaign he has flowered in his political sensibility and turned into a very self-assured orator be it on one on one encounters at town hall style meetings or media events and even at large public meetings. If he keeps doing what he is doing, then he can only become better. This will help him and the Congress party to function effectively as an Opposition in the short-term. Elections are a win-loss game which is in the hands of the voters and no purpose is served by resigning to 'own responsibility' which is only a face-saving political gesture of not much meaning. It is those who are in for the long haul who make for great leaders. By insisting on resigning he is only playing into the hands of his detractors and the BJP who are very much into their narrative of a 'Congress-mukt Bharat'. If by resigning, Rahul Gandhi thinks he can get a better bargaining position in trying to get a carte-blanche in the Congress party re-organisation and to make it more relevant in the present context, he is sadly mistaken. Any organisational changes that he needs to bring in are best done with him at the helm of the Congress party presidency. He has kept insisting that someone from outside the Gandhi family can become the Congress President. That is not going to happen since as long as any Gandhi remains in the Congress party and is in politics, no one outside the family will take up the top party post. If he continues to dither then it may not be unusual to see factions of the Congress in the various States strike out on their own to create regional outfits. Some of the chatterboxes on TV chat shows have been 'postulating' that Rahul Gandhi's offer to have a Congress President outside the Gandhi family is the signal for unity among those that broke away from the Grand Old Party (GOP) like the NCP & the TMC and others. This is rather immature reasoning since neither Sharad Pawar and Mamata Banerji will give up their independence and the parties that they have built up for close to a decade now. They have like a tiger tasted blood and any talk of merger will be rebuffed and if at all likely will come with the demands of an associated pound of flesh as we had seen in the failed grand alliance of parties like the Mahagathbandhan that was proposed in the lead-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. So Rahul Gandhi will have to soldier on as Congress party president with his shoulder to the wheel seeking the magic figure of 271 in the Lok Sabha come 2024 or even later.
The Three Services Of Our Defence Forces Need To Be Tightened
The fact that the bringing down of our helicopter by 'friendly fire' on the day of the Balakot strike and related air combat in Kashmir which has been confirmed now brings to the fore the need to shore up our national security. The IAF among the three armed forces wings had remained out of the chronic offender’s list but with the incident of shooting down of the helicopter it has opened its account of careless and negligent action. Though one must say that the IAF has had its share of crashes with the MIG-21 dominating and a random Jaguar or a Sukhoi going down. However these cannot be ascribed without doubt to the pilots flying them since the age of the aircraft has reached the vintage stage and the MIG-21's have for long been tagged as the 'flying coffins'. But what rankles is that in the recent incident is that the helicopter had not switched on its 'friend or foe' transponder which confused the missile battery commander in Srinagar to identify the aircraft and whether or not to fire the missiles. It is also reported that the commander in Srinagar had also no means to verify the helicopter's antecedents though one wonders what happened to good old radio. And even though the aerial dogfight arena was almost 75-100 Km. away he still decided to fire the Israeli missile to shoot down the helicopter. With just a stray incident of battle creating so much confusion one wonders what would happen if a full scale aerial battle were to take place with multiple aircraft, both in type and number. The IAF needs to brush up after this and keep its battle readiness at a knife's edge. Just to recount we had the Army showing in recent times similar lacunae in the terrorist attacks at its many camps in the forward areas of Kashmir notably Uri and the cantonment at Pathankot. The Navy has been the most proliferate in its inconsistencies with many fires at both Mumbai and Vizag not only at ports but also both on ships and submarines with the latest being the one on a warship just off the Karwar coast about a month ago where a young officer lost his life. At the height of the series of accidents which had included docking a ship at port side which one would assume is a regular exercise for the captain of the vessel in which he miserably failed the then chief of the Navy taking responsibility had offered his resignation. So with our armed forces in all three sectors of land, sea and air we have problems and it is time therefore that they are brought back to proper trim again.
The Argentinian Coach Better Pull Up His Socks Before Copa America
The Copa America cup is just around the corner and the Argentinian coach better have his thinking cap put on right side up so that he can have his attacking resources of the likes of Messi, Dybala, Di Maria and Aguero to be used in decisive and aggressive fashion. These players are stars in their club teams who depend upon them to score goals and that is how they need to be used in the national team. There needs to be playmakers behind them to feed them the balls to score goals. This was sorely lacking during the last World Cup where Argentina was again forced to cut a sorry face. Messi could be seen in the later matches wandering in the opponent's half of the field with very few balls coming to him. This situation needs to be corrected in the Copa America cup as a build up to the next World Cup upcoming in Oman. The coach should singly be held responsible if Argentina are unable to make satisfactory headway in the Copa America cup.
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