Vox Populi Issue 246

                                                            VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 246                      Date: 27.08.2018

                    Visit: skamat.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

 

Contents:                              

1. The Cow Lynchings Must Come To An End

2. Of Banking Operations & The State Of Our Economy

3. The Unfolding Kerala Tragedy

                               The Cow Lynchings Must Come To An End

The cow lynching exercise has in the last few days spread to Assam where again you have a BJP led government. One person died in the incident and three there were seriously injured which was sparked by allegations of the victims for stealing cattle.
Thus in cow lynching cases, for one cow at least generally one Muslim or one Dalit are getting killed. These mindless killings have to stop since the attackers are not applying their mind to what happens after their actions to the cows and the victims. The cows in the inability of their being returned to their rightful owners are put in shelters. And with no one to care for them properly there have been a huge number of deaths at these supposed shelters which are supposed to care for the cattle sent there. Rajasthan saw 200 cattle deaths in  2016 in a shelter just outside Jaipur. In Chattisgarh it is a regular affair with 50 cattle dead in 2017 with lesser numbers in between and even a couple of  weeks back another 18 have died there after being cooped up in a room with no ventilation.   The cows mostly die because of starvation and thirst since there could be issues of funding of the shelters but mostly it is because of negligence of those running the shelters and those working in them. Apart from the States mentioned above cow deaths in shelters have been seen across India ranging from Maharashtra to Andhra Pradesh and others.  So in cases where such deaths of cattle are happening in shelters should not some of those running the cow shelters be put to death as recompense for the cow lynchings. Now let us come to the victims who are put to death by the gaurakshaks. The cattle trade apart from milk like the business in beef and leather has been traditionally in the hands of the Muslims and the Dalits both as owners of the business and working in them. So they have no alternative livelihood apart from that or will find it difficult to switch their work. Therefore there needs to be sense of practicality in looking at the cattle trade. If cows or cattle in general who are not milk producing can be slaughtered then it serves as a dietary  supplement and also generates employment in the leather trade fr a large part of our population. This home truth has to be drilled into the minds of those that profess to love the cow. It is only then that the current spate of cow lynchings across the country will come to an end. 

                        Of Banking Operations & The State Of Our Economy

RBI recently announced that bank losses in 2017 amounted to Rs. 28,500 Crores. The increase in NPA's in 2017 over the previous year were also put at Rs. 1.5 Lakh Crores. This figure would have been higher but for the banks resorting to decorating their books by fancy accounting and classifying loans to proprietary and partnership concerns amounting to some Rs. 10 Lakh Crores as personal loans. In the immediate last two quarters it is reported that the increase in NPA's has been tapering off which augurs well for the future unless it is yet again related to some fancy footwork in accounting as said earlier. There are two issues here. First bank nationalisation was done in the interests of the common man.  This has been forsaken now and banks have fallen prey to unionised staff and management that serves its own interests and indulges in crony capitalism. The second is that the losses have to be funded. By what - Public money? In both cases the PSB's as well as private banks it is the common man who is at the receiving end and called upon to fund the losses by way of taxation.

At the same time the Rupee was close to Rs. 71 to the US dollar recently recovering now to a tad below Rs. 70, a record of sorts considering that the Rupee has never sunk as low as this. This fall is being blamed on external factors mainly the dramatic erosion of the Turkish Lira against the US dollar. At the same time the stock markets are booming with the BSE Sensex crossing 38,000 and the NSE 11,500. There was a time in the early part of this century when twice the economies in East Asia as well as the developed world were hit badly but India remained minimally affected. But nowadays because we are maybe more 'globalised' our Rupee and the stock markets swing like a pendulum on international winds for the lack of a steadying hand on our economy. The absence of a full-time Finance Minister is showing.

                                       The Unfolding Kerala Tragedy

The unfolding Kerala disaster as a consequence of torrential rains and then landslides and floods is horrifying. With about 350 dead and close to 7 Lakh people in temporary shelters the human tragedy has reached massive proportions. These are official numbers and the actual numbers may be higher for those caught up in the tragedy that the government and authorities have not been able to reach out to. However apart from ascribing the cause of the disaster to nature's fury one cannot discount the human hand in it. Denudation of forests, the reckless and mindless cutting of trees that has resulted in the weakening of the soil, building of houses and other structures on the hillsides and on the flood plains of the rivers and the inefficient management of the water release from the many dams has probably led to the unfolding tragedy. Notwithstanding all this the human crisis is of mammoth proportions and it is important that all efforts to mitigate the hardships and help in reconstruction be given to the people of Kerala affected by the disaster. What is also important is that in the wake of floods disease always follows and it is important to be wary of these risks and be prepared for them with medicines and medical facilities on a war footing.

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Vox Populi Issue 245

VOX POPULI                                                                         by                                                                   S Kamat                                                                          as                                                                 Aam Admi                                            Issue: 245                      Date: 20.08.2018                     Visit: skamat.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com   Contents: 1. Adieu All. R.I.P. 2. Traffic Problems At Zuari Bridge & Agacaim - Verna Stretch 3. Storing The Waters Of The Monsoon Otherwise Going Waste 4. India's English Tour: What's Going Wrong?  5. Banks Are Being Overly Protected & Charging Customers To The Death                                                 Adieu All. R.I.P. The last week has seen the death of many stalwarts around the world. From Atal Behari Vajpayee to Karunanidhi to Vidia Naipaul to Somnath Chatterjee to Kofi Annan to Ajit Wadekar. Each of them strode like a colossus in their fields touching the lives of many people. Poet, statesman and more importantly probably the last of the gentlemen in Indian politics was Vajpayee. His going releases the moorings of the final threads of rationality in the Bharatiya Janata Party. In Karunandhi's demise the last of the great regional party leaders - the DMK. Vidia Naipaul was an acerbic and outspoken person whose novels were widely admired. In Somnath Chatterjee you had a Parliamentarian who adorned the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha with grace and authority. Kofi Annan brought grace, dignity and rare authority to the office of the UN Secretary General coming from the Third World. And finally Ajit Wadekar, the man with the silken touch who with his willow wand could caress the ball to the boundary in cricket with his cuts on the offside. A man who gave India the confidence that they could win abroad and as captain and then manager nurtured a great bunch of competitive cricketers. Adieu all. R.I.P.             Traffic Problems At Zuari Bridge & Agacaim - Verna Stretch Democracy was famously defined by Abraham Lincoln as of the people, by the people and for the people. However, in India it is more known as as of the politicians, by the politicians and for the politicians. Development as we have seen is being pursued at any cost affecting the day to day lives of the common people, trampling their interests and ignoring their problems. The traffic mess in the stretch between Agacaim and Verna particularly on the Zuari Bridge and at the Cortalim circle is a case in point which is the result of the careless and negligent attitude of our politicians.  Where they should have learnt from the traffic jams and snarls at Porvorim which were there for everyone to see during the ongoing construction of the 3rd Mandovi Bridge. It seems our politicians and decision makers were blind, deaf or both to these problems? The same irresponsible approach is being adopted for the new Zuari Bridge which is the cause of the problems that are being seen on the Verna - Agacaim stretch. Imagine what will happen when the actual bridge construction starts. Just like at Porvorim the approach of this government was to let the traffic flow and to tackle any problems as they arose by handing out patchwork solutions. This attitude underlies the negligence of people's interests and shows no advance planning which would have alleviated the problems to a large extent. The expectation is that people will 'manage' and if you explain the larger picture of the new bridge then the people will suffer in silence. This will not do and it is time that our government takes stock of the issues for any development in advance and tackles them. Presentation of a plan  after looking at issues that are likely to arise will give the people more confidence and get the government more cooperation to put through its development plans more easily and efficiently. The present modus operandi is to ride on people's backs until the limits of patience and tolerance are crossed. Postscript: One would have seen this situation across India where the administration does not think through a situation, puts people into problems and then the politician steps in to 'solve' the problem just for the sake of collecting brownie points. Nearer election times the politicians become more active on such matters.                  Storing The Waters Of The Monsoon Otherwise Going Waste Upon seeing our flood ravaged regions across the country, the waterfalls in our hilly regions and dams disgorging enormous volumes of water at tremendous pressures, one feels that the government needs to take measures across the country to store this water. The waters flowing at massive force can be stored in vertical (maybe 100 feet or even higher) silo farms near these sites allowing the rapidly flowing water to rise as much as it can in these silos. Then these can be pumped in sequence to the next level until the 100 feet silo is completely full and so on to the other silos in the farm. These silo water farms can be located at strategic places where the flood waters and waters released from dams are copious and along the flow of water near population centres like cities, towns and villages. This could alleviate not only the problem of flood damage to living habitats by water diversion but also serve as buffer water stocks to be used when the existing storage of reservoirs is not able to meet the water demand be it for potable use or irrigation. Since the monsoons are irregular, in years that the rains are deficient and once a pattern for that is reasonably established, the extra silos in these farms can be used to store grain which as we have seen in Punjab and Haryana in boom times of harvest is stored in the open to rot. These silos can be made of RCC or steel coated internally with plastic on a crash 5 year program which will lead to a fillip to the related industry and generate employment. Harnessing the forces of nature is a low cost source for energy and is relatively inexhaustible.                                    India's English Tour: What's Going Wrong?  India needs to buckle down in the ongoing cricket Test series in England. The first Test was close and one was happy that the series had started off with a bang. But in that Test were the portends of what was to follow. But let us remain with the first Test for a moment. The fact that Pujara was not taken in the team was a surprise. He has been doing a stint in county cricket and being more familiar with English playing conditions is clearly more qualified to be included than the other recognised batsmen. Rahul or Rahane had to make way for him even on counts of batting averages. Also in terms of technique one can easily say that at the present moment there cannot be an Indian Test cricket team without Pujara. Now let us come to the portends and that relates to our batsmen not able to play swing bowling. The first Test was a low scoring one but it showed up the deficiencies of Indian batsmen's technique to play quality swing bowling. Andersen, Broad, Stokes and newcomer Curran in the heavy English conditions can make the red cherry do magic which our batsmen failed to negotiate. The only exception was Virat Kohli with a magnificent century in the first innings followed by a 50 in the second. The second Test brought these home truths about our batsmen's weakness against swing bowling to roost with the first day's play lost due to rain and then India getting out cheaply with doubts whether they would even cross 100. The England batsmen did relatively better partly because India made their job easier. The lack of an additional pace bowler in Kohli's armoury was apparent. Why an additional spinner was chosen when the Lord's pitch was reported as a green top and with rain reported over the span of the match is something that only Shastri & Kohli can clarify? Not only that Kuldeep Yadav a novice at Test cricket compared to Ashwin was given the ball in the Lord's Test much before Ashwin. This despite Ashwin being among the wickets in both innings of the first Test. This is yet another strategic mistake that Kohli needs to explain. Your main strike bowlers you need to use when the batsmen are new at the crease. The other thing that Kohli and our bowling attack needs to ponder on is once the team gets 5/6 wickets then they let the opposing team off the hook and that is when a Bairstow scores big or a a Woakes gets an undeserving (in India's perspective) century. This happened in both the Tests in England and has happened in the past also. The desire to take wickets should be there in the bowlers and the captain should have the acumen to shuffle his bowlers effectively. These are areas in which Kohli's lack of maturity and experience is showing like being emotional in team selection and not being strategical on the field. It is not enough to be a great batsman to be a good captain and the above are more matters of the mind that needs to be tackled along with a lower back problem. Concluding, one cannot take away the credit from England in the last 2 Tests where from the pace bowlers we have seen great swing bowling after a long time. In any case there are still 3 Tests to go and all India expects from its batsmen is to show more application to match the brilliance of some individual performances like that of Kohli, Ashwin, Ishant and Shami. Postscript: Since this piece was written the 3rd Test at Trent Bridge has started and India is in a good position with all-round batting and bowling performances. Shows what happens when you put your head down and apply yourself to the task in hand.            Banks Are Being Overly Protected & Charging Customers To The Death The other day at the Bank I saw a Notice about fine and imprisonment in event of abuse of bank officials by public. I must say that for the last 50 years or more that I have been going to Banks across the country I had not seen such a notice and that too prominently displayed. The Bank is a service organisation where its primary role is to deal with customers with courtesy and efficiency. Or at least that is the expectation. Therefore why a situation like abuse comes up in interaction between Bank officials and customers is something one finds difficult to fathom. However, to grant the Bank a certain amount of leeway, times may have changed and there could be a class of customers who resort to abuse. But here again one finds hard to believe that anything like this would happen in Goa. However since a notice of abuse has been put up by the Bank I will cite two instances that I personally experienced with Banks in the period Dec 2017 - June 2018. Based on these incidents which are fully documented I leave it to you to judge whether the Bank needs to be abused or not and if I do I would find myself in jail! Anyway, the first instance was end Dec 2017 when I went to draw cash from an ATM and found that instead of cash I was given a printout saying - Unable to dispense cash. The ATM was housed next to the Bank premises and I showed them the printout assuming with that proof the cashier would give me the cash. But I was told that I need to go to my Bank where the Debit card was linked to an account and file a complaint. I promptly did as advised when my Bank told me that it would take 7 days for them to reverse the transaction and credit my account with the undisbursed money. Inspite of regular follow-ups with my Bank branch and the call-centre of my Bank, it took 24 days for the money to be refunded to me. What if I needed the money urgently? What if I was a student or person with no more money in my account? The personal travails of the individual are not taken into account while the Bank officials quote rule books which in any case they do not follow at least for timelines for redressal. In another case in May 2018 I was travelling away from my home station to Bengaluru and upon incurring a small amount of expenditure of Rs. 250, I received an sms saying that my account had gone below minimum balance. I was surprised since at the time of leaving Goa I had enough in my account for at least Rs. 250. Upon returning to Goa with no facility to draw cash from my Debit Card at Bengaluru when I checked with my Bank, I found that an excessive amount had been deducted from my account for our Bank Locker. Upon querying them it was found that instead of debiting a single year's locker rent the Bank claimed that their software had debited my account for multiple years, wiping the account clean. For my comfort and satisfaction the Bank said it was not only me but other people have also faced a similar problem. For a software glitch a Senior Citizen like me had to be without cash while being out of station! This also at a time when the PM has been talking of a cashless society. In any case this issue was resolved after 50 days of my filing an application to rectify it. Why I have to file an application when it is the Bank's mistake is something I could not understand but nonetheless I made an application. But the matter had to go to the top of the Bank's local management before it could be resolved. On the plea of computer glitches the Banks are hiding sloth and inefficiency. This has been the downside of computerisation in banks. Based on these two incidents, please tell me if the Bank officials concerned are not deserving of abuse. But if I abuse them, then they will send me to jail! Why is the class of officials like bank and other public officials being singled out for preferential and soft treatment in the eye of the IPC etc.? A new caste system is being created in this country with IAS at the apex and followed by various categories of public officials to replace Manu's caste order. Apart from this the banks are overcharging common customers. All banks in total made more than Rs. 5000 crores in the last financial year by way of penalties levied for not maintaining minimum balance in Bank accounts. Close to 50% of this amount went to SBI and they still report a loss in three consecutive quarters and some Rs 5000 crores recently for the A-J 2018 quarter. So even after making money out of common customers, the banks books are heavily balanced towards the loot of public money by a crony class of customers who are responsible for the NPA's in connivance with bank officials that reflect as losses. And remember that bank nationalisation was done in the interest of the common man and in about 50 years hence the banks are sitting squarely on the shoulders of the common man and riding him to his death.                                                     ************************

Vox Populi Issue 244

                                                              VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 244                      Date: 13.08.2018

                    Visit: skamat.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:

1. Argentina! Oh, Argentina! 

2. Dalai Lama's Unwanted & Out-of-Turn Comments

3. Swaccha Bharat Program Ill Conceived, Needlessly Capital Intensive

4. Hapless Bribe-Givers Have No Choice, Cannot Be Named Offenders

                                      Argentina! Oh, Argentina! 

I need to confess that I am a big fan of Messi and still not able to get over Argentina's exit in the last World Cup held in Russia. Come to think of it, it seems it was all coach Sampaoli's fault in not being able to knit his forward line into a cohesive attack machine with the likes of Messi, Aguero, De Maria and Dybala in the side. Aguero was hardly used in the World Cup matches and in most cases came on as a substitute. But then in his first serious match for Manchester City in the FA Community Shield after the World Cup he scores his 1000th goal for the club! Not only that in the opening game of the season for PSG, DeMaria scored in the French Super Cup. If you had seen Argentina's matches in the World Cup it was clearly apparent that Messi was being underfed with the ball and most of the time he would be wandering up front in the opposing half like a lost child and him being the best player in the world today. Argentina in their future international forays needs to have a coach who understands his players and is able to get the best out of them.

                     Dalai Lama's Unwanted & Out-of-Turn Comments

When you have a revered guest staying with you at home, make unwanted and out-of-turn comments, how would you feel? That is the position that the Dalai Lama has put Indians with his comments about Nehru, Jinnah, Partition et al. There was no need for him to say about a self-willed Nehru unwilling to give up being a Prime Minister or that Jinnah would have made a good Prime Minister in which case there would have been no Partition. Many a time has the Dalai Lama done the same kind of thing in the past making controversial statements without recognising that he is a guest in this country and the least that he and his people could do is to be grateful for the hospitality. Moreover he is a man of religion and compelled by China's actions to be thrust into politics which should be limited to Tibet and not related to his host country, India. Religious heads should stick to religion matters and not stray outside where they are bound to make embarrassing gaffes like the one the Dalai Lama has made in his recent visit to Goa. 

       Swaccha Bharat Program Ill Conceived, Needlessly Capital Intensive

Achieving OD - Outdoor Defecation free India is a mirage. Major offenders of OD are workers at construction sites  going into the surroundings with bottles filled with water in their hands early in the morning. Surely they are not going out to water the plants! One of the initiatives for OD free India should have been to make it mandatory for construction sites to have firstly toilets for their workers, better still Bio or chemical toilets. There is also an exercise being thought of of distributing Bio-toilets to villages across the country in some States like Goa to become OD free which is nothing but a spending exercise which is also true for the entire Swaccha Bharat program. Where the program should have started from the basics to bring cleanliness in our surrounding by people awareness and education, the emphasis is to spend money which is being wasted. Like on the toilets Issue Sulabh International should have been brought in in a big way and installed simple toilets in our villages that they would run like it has been done in the slum areas of Mumbai in the concept of community toilets. Then progressively once people had got into the habit of using toilets then slowly the concept of Bio or chemical toilets could have been brought in. This methodology would have ensured that the toilet use habit is sustaining. Nowadays you will find that even if the village home has a toilet the elders may still go out with a bucket in the morning for their morning ablutions by force of habit or stubbornness to persist with the habit. In these fancy purchases of Bio-toilets etc. for the Swaccha Bharat program, you will find these will not work within a year of inauguration like we have seen in our other hi-tech purchases e.g. traffic signals, CCTV etc particularly in remote and rural areas. Thus someone is clearly lining their pockets with these fancy purchases or favours are being made to particular suppliers. Again the Swaccha Bharat program was launched for publicity by VIP's from the PM to Governors sweeping the roads. But these eminent people forgot to put in place a system for someone to do it the next day so the road remains unswept since that day when the VIP used the broom on it. The broom is also lying forlorn in the gutter forgotten because nobody wants to buy it on auction even though Narendra Modi touched it! The other thing is that if you want a Swaccha Bharat make the streets and surroundings of India animal free, like dogs, cattle etc. These should be removed since with their pooh (shit), they contribute more to the dirty roads and surroundings than anything else.

        Hapless Bribe-Givers Have No Choice, Cannot Be Named Offenders

The Anti Corruption Bill likely to be presented in Parliament is going to make the bribe giver culpable and subject to criminal prosecution. How can the person paying the bribe who is a victim be made an offender? No one in his right mind goes up to the babus or police and offers a bribe. It is the officials who ask for a bribe as the consideration to do something that a person wants done. The person has no choice. Either he pays up and gets his work done or forgoes the work which sometimes is not possible. The last resort is that the person goes to the ACB - Anti Corruption Bureau and makes sure that the official demanding the bribe is caught red handed. Thus the aspect of the bribe giver to be named the offender should not find a place in the proposed Bill. Many of the bills being passed as law these days are slanted to absolve the bureaucracy and/or public officials. The RTI amendment bill, thankfully withdrawn, was another exercise in blocking information to save the babus. These are all the convoluted machinations that possibly spring out of the mind of Ravi Shankar Prasad, our Law Minister who has spent a lifetime doing this. You will not reduce corruption by making the bribe-giver an offender but by awarding exemplary and speedy punishment by those who take bribes. The government's track record in proceeding against corrupt officials in criminal courts is atrocious and over the last decade more than 80% of those caught have not even been brought to court let alone for sentencing. As usual this BJP government is barking up the wrong tree and needless creating a smokescreen to hide the real issues.

                                                    ***********************

Vox Populi Issue 243

                                                           VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 243                      Date: 06.08.2018

                    Visit: skamat.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:

1. We Have A New Government In WhatsApp

2. Do Our MLA's & MP's Deserve Salary Hikes?

3. India Inc. Fast  Becoming Gujarat Inc. 

4. In India Talk Of Development Is For Sloganeering Alone

                                     We Have A New Government In WhatsApp

The lynching virus that has infected the nation is because the present government has abdicated governance and is depending on foreign agencies like WhatsApp to manage and stem information flow. Where the perpetrators of rumours have to be identified and acted upon the government is adopting a diversionary tactic to convert a law and order issue into a technology problem. This is like drawing a red herring across the matter and focusing the lens on agencies like WhatsApp. The TV media has fallen for this sucker trap and lapped this up with most news channels having endless discussions on what WhatsApp can or cannot do. This also appeals to the public and has thus diverted public discourse. Primarily what should have been done is that the people who plant such news should have been identified and caught. This agencies like WhatsApp can help there by easily tracking who was first to transmit the item or news on their medium. This input needs to be balanced with local police intelligence information to zero in on the perpetrators. Approaching WhatsApp to limit the transmission of the flammatory news is necessarily something to be done but this is a secondary activity. It should succeed the primary emphasis to catch the culprits responsible for the problem. However, the BJP government by first rushing to WhatsApp is abdicating the governance of our country to a foreign entity. 

                                      Do Our MLA's & MP's Deserve Salary Hikes?

The Goa Assembly has quietly passed the measure to raise MLA's salaries by a whopping 77%. The reason as mentioned by CM Parrikar was price rise. Inflation according to the RBI figures is close to 5-6% so the unseemly and prodigious raise by 77% is clearly atrocious. Moreover it is a shame that these legislators take decisions for themselves and that too on the quiet without first considering others who are more deserving. Panchayat members who are paid peanuts have been clamouring for a raise for a long time. Nothing has been done for them. Not only that many of the State-run corporations have not been given the last Pay Commission hikes for which a strike has been called by Kadamba Transport lately. Thus you see our legislators not only feather their nests during their term but also make themselves financially comfortable in the process of doing so. Postscript: Across India our MLA's & MP's have been quietly giving themselves raises in both salaries and allowances. Parties across the board have been unanimous in supporting this measure. One of the most venal politicians Lallu Prasad Yadav had the temerity to say sometime back on the floor of Parliament that even he needs the salary hike to meet monthly expenses now that his wife! Rabri Devi is no longer Chief Minister of Bihar! He also went on to say that MP's who have no other source of income need the hike. Manohar Parrikar while defending the raise had also said something similar that legislators not finding time to attend to their family businesses needed the salaries to compensate for the loss of business while they attend to their legislative responsibilities. Looking at this issue in another perspective, these people become legislators by choice. No one is forcing them. They full well know the implications of the responsibilities that the job entails. And still they come! Why? And after they become MLA's & MP's for a majority of them the net worth keeps rising over the years. Though lately they have had to file asset returns at the time of contesting for elections with the Election Commission these returns are not used to take any administrative faction against the candidates. They are in the manner of decorative items that you keep on your mantelpiece that are kept only to show that the Election Commission has complied with the stipulations in the Rule Book. If the asset returns are passed on to the Income Tax Dept. we would surely have had disproportionate asset cases against more than 95% of our MLA's & MP's. This would have blown the lid off the farce that is played out by almost all the political parties about their 'fight against corruption'. An advantageous side-effect of this could be that we would have had a fresh crop of MLA's & MP's who hopefully would not be as much bent upon making money for themselves. Aside: The post-script has become longer than the original piece. That shows you how much there is sometimes 'between the lines' or reminds you of a bird or a monkey (choose your pick) with a very long tail. 

                                     India Inc. Fast  Becoming Gujarat Inc. 

Narendra Modi has claimed that he is not afraid to hob nob with industrialists in public.  That is because even before they ask for favours he has been showering upon them blessings like manna from heaven. Case in point is that of Mukesh Ambani getting the Institute of Eminence for his university which has not even got off the ground. However much the present government tries to defend this largesse by saying that what has been given is a Letter of Intent, it carries no meaning since never in independent India has a status been bestowed for a non-existent Institute! Similarly the brother Anil Ambani has been given the privilege with no previous experience of military aircraft of being associated with the Dassault Group of Cos., France from whom we are buying the Rafael fighter jets. The Anil Ambani group is clearly being bailed out since they have not been doing well lately in financial terms and particularly their telecommunication foray as Reliance Telecom is close to filing for bankruptcy. It seems these days the best way to obtain any large project is to go up to the government and frankly say that we have no experience in the particular area and they with the 56in. chest in which a seemingly large heart resides which is very selective to favour the people from Gujarat,  will say that these people have a definite intent to do good so give it to them! In this manner India Inc. is being fast converted into Gujarat Inc. 

                       In India Talk Of Development Is For Sloganeering Alone

We keep hearing our politicians ranging from the PM onwards harping on the issue of development. However, with a few extra inches of rain every year every city and town of India gets inundated. In some cities like Mumbai the same areas like Parel, Lalbagh, Dadar, Matunga, Sion have been getting flooded for the last 20 years or so and the municipality has not been able to come up with any solution for the problem. Not that newer areas like Vashi & Navi Mumbai have fared any better. These areas where a lot of new development has taken place have also joined the chronic flooding list. As far as the rural and outlying areas of the country are concerned they are no better. Assam has for generations been seeing flooding during the monsoon and the same is true for Orissa and parts of UP. Though Bihar this year has been spared with the rain gods lenient on them with the rains failing there. Even the capital Delhi has been prone to flood scares with the rising Yamuna every year and even otherwise in the first rains this year some of the areas like near Minto Bridge continue to get inundated. At other times Delhi sees a drinking water shortage particularly in the hot summers but just a few months later with the rains setting in some 5 Lakh Cusecs of water released by Haryana through their Barrage as announced recently is allowed to go waste! At other places around the country we have been seeing rain related deaths like in Kerala. Is this development? Development should mean the ability to manage nature's vagaries and harness them like in the instance of the monsoon for the longer term benefit of the people and minimise the number of fatalities that occur as a consequence of weather related disasters. However in India development is more for sloganeering before elections and for profiteering round the year by the politicians and the bureaucracy. We the people are  also at fault for accepting the problems as above silently being bogged down with the compulsions of daily life and adopting the fatalistic approach that after all the rainy season is only for 3 months in a year. This cannot go on like this and people need to change and be more vocal and demand solutions to the problems they face in the surroundings around them. 

                                                        *************************

Hi,

I am mailing you the latest issue of Vox Populi to stimulate and encourage discussion and comment on current affairs. If you are interested in responding to any of the issues mentioned in this newsletter you could mail me or alternately post your comment at my blog - skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com. The comment if posted on my blogs will have the advantage of other people who peruse Vox Populi to see your comment and respond to it, if need be. On the kamatblog.blogspot.com blog you can see the back issues of Vox Populi also.

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Thanking you for your patience in reading through this.

HAPPY READING VOX POPULI.

Yours truly

S Kamat, S-1, Sanohitra Apts., Dr Rego Bagh, Alto St. Cruz, Goa 403202.

Mob: 0 7218698906 

Email: kamatsrinivas@hotmail.com

Vox Populi Issue 242

                                                           VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 242                      Date: 30.07.2018

                    Visit: skamat.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

 

Contents:

1. Issues of Mis-Governance by Present BJP Government

2. Parrikar's Fishy Governance

3. The Sabarimalai Temple Judgment Does Not Take Into Account Matters Of

     Faith

4. The Rising Cost of PM Narendra Modi to India

5. Stray Dogs Need To Be Caught & Put In Enclosures for A Swaccha Bharat

6. Banning Import of Fish Without Corresponding Assurance of Supply is 

     Meaningless

7. The Modus Operandi Of Lynching

                        Issues of Mis-Governance by Present BJP Government

Piyush Goyal, acting FM seems to know more about Swiss banks than what they themselves know while contesting the fact that the Indian deposits have gone up in the last year! He brought some report very intricate and complicated from another source to show that the deposits have actually gone 'down'. The very manner in which this was done created a very serious credibility issue with Goyal's claim. Such tactics are those of bullies who not wanting to know anything adverse about themselves try to muscle their opinions on others to prove that they are right. The BJP have been consistently doing this through the pendency of this government. 

Like in the case of lynchings where the victims have been mostly Muslims and Dalits and happening in BJP governed States, the BJP are bringing the charge of being communal against the Opposition parties mostly the Congress instead of getting their cadres or those perpetrating such incidents to stop or catching such people and bringing them to justice. 

Also the waiving of GST on sanitary napkins and making it Nil has resulted in local manufacturers not being able to avail input credit. This again shows that this government does not think through its measures. It will take another couple of months to solve the input credit issue and until that time the government touted  price reduction for sanitary napkins will not happen because manufacturers are unable to reduce prices or can cut it down just marginally by 1-1.5%. The local manufacturers fear that by reducing the GST to zero and not giving input credit to them, the market will be flooded by imported sanitary napkins driving them out of business. This brings back to mind the days of Demonetisation and GST implementation where the measures were good in concept but being put through badly resulted in untold miseries for the common people. 

The PM Research Fellowship (PMRF) program earlier limited to premier educational institutions like IIT's has now been expanded to all universities in the country. The fact that it was limited to some institutions had created a heartburn and had attracted charges of discrimination. The other reason for heartburn is that the amounts of stipend for the PMRF program is much higher than the similar fellowships run by the UGC & other Departments like Science & Technology which will now come to the fore since it is pretty apparent that the stipends need to be rationalised across different fellowship schemes. All this is happening within one year of the launch of the PMRF program. It is felt therefore that the program could have been launched with greater attention and its ramifications on other similar schemes of the government.

                                        Parrikar's Fishy Governance

Manohar Parrikar seems to have lost his touch for governance. You can see this in the ham-handed manner he has been handling the formalin-in-fish issue. Being the Chief Minister of Goa instead of his interest lying in the well-being of Goans, he made a statement in the Assembly about his concern that the tourists are not ordering fish in the hotels. Have we come to the stage that we need to sacrifice our interests for the benefit of tourists? Or is it only for the benefit of tourists will things get done in Goa and not for its local people? The other thing is about the fish mafia operating in the Margao wholesale market. Having been Chief Minister many times, is this the first time that he is becoming aware of the mafia? Also it is insulting to Goans to make out that one man, Ibrahim or whatever his name is, controls the fish trade in Goa? This is what even Parrikar's statements have made us believe where he has said that some politicians are linked to the mafia. Lastly, allowing fish trucks to come to Goa from other States except for consumption is leaving the door slightly open for fish wholesalers to earn more than a premium at this time of shortage since this fish will finally end up only in the markets. If you have a ban then you should have a complete ban and stop all fish coming into Goa. If Goans are suffering by not having fish in their daily diet, the fish processors need also to suffer and forego their business in the interests of Goa for the duration of the ban.   

The Sabarimalai Temple Judgment Does Not Take Into Account Matters Of Faith 

The Sabarimalai Temple judgment is indicative of the very limited scope that the Supreme Court judges have taken and that is the equity of men and women. Shri Parasaran, counsel for the Nair Soceity appearing in the case before the Supreme Court  has argued eloquently and brought out almost all aspects to negate the judgment that has not taken into account the matters of faith. It is faith that last Mon, 23rd July on the occasion of Ashadi Ekadasi the Lord Vittal temple in Pandharpur attracted anywhere between 8-10 Lakh pilgrims to pay their respects to the deity, some who may have walked from near Alandi near Pune to Pandharpur, a distance of close to 300 Km. over a span of 15 days. These devotees get the physical strength to undergo the journey by the power of their faith in the Lord. Nobody gives them transportation, the devotees come on their own unlike political rallies were people are herded into buses or other means of transport but even then they are no match for the crowds that throng temples for religious events. The Rathayatra at around the same time in Puri draws similar crowds of devotees.  The Kumbh mela at Allahabad is another example where large crowds are drawn by their faith in the event. There are other lesser pilgrimages of similar nature in North & Eastern India where it is pure faith that inspires the devotees to go beyond the boundaries of their physical self. Even at Sabarimalai it is again faith that draws the pilgrims to the temple in the middle of the forest in huge numbers. It is now that roads have been built and access to the temple has been made easier but even now there are the die-hards who prefer to trek through the jungle, camping in the open for at least 5-6 days facing the risk of being attacked by wild animals, crossing the river Pamba and then reaching the temple the first day it opens for the Makara Vilakku festival. Such things cannot be explained or rationalised in the limited framework of black and white paperwork. Allowing women of the ages of 10-50 to the Sabarimalai Temple will shatter the faith of the countless multitudes of pilgrims that visit it during the two limited spans that it is open during the year. Lately the Supreme Court has been a touch over-enthusiastic in taking up matters which may not necessarily be in their domain taking advantage of which there are petitioners who file cases in the hope of getting a judgment which makes the matter beyond the reach of any other argument. The Supreme Court needs to be wary of such tendencies. A case in point of equivalence that can be cited is that the Mumbai High Court lately has been asking why so many abortion cases of advanced foetus formation are coming to it since maybe it was more than generous with its judgments in earlier cases. 

                              The Rising Cost of PM Narendra Modi to India

Modi's cost for the Jaipur rally held on 7th July 2018 was about Rs. 7.5 crores mainly to transport some 2,50,000 attendees. In addition t9 this there was the cost of food that was given to those who were brought for the rally. This entire cost was to be borne by State and Central agencies and not by the party. No wonder the fiscal deficit is spiralling beyond control. To recover all this the government will again pick the common man's pockets by increasing some levies and taxes. The PM is expected to address 50 such rallies in Rajasthan alone before the Assembly elections there and you can well imagine the cost that we, the public will have to bear. The PM has again gone off on an African tour touching South Africa among other countries. If you take statistics since 2014 when Narendra Modi became PM you will find that he is the most widely travelled head of State in the world. The embarrassed government has been at its wit's end to find ways of refusing RTI enquiries on the cost of the PM's visits abroad which it has in any case been successful in stalling. 

        Stray Dogs Need To Be Caught & Put In Enclosures for A Swaccha Bharat

Rabies inoculation for stray dogs being done in Goa in association with a NGO should have been expanded in its scope. In any case the dogs need to be caught to be inoculated for rabies at which time they could have been put in pens so that they do not roam free. Dogs are a major source of dirtying our surroundings with their pooh (shit) & their habit of urinating anywhere and everywhere. These stray dogs are also a source of danger for small children and older people whom they attack sometimes with fatal consequences as we have seen across the country. Therefore it is important that they are not allowed to be let loose.  The success of the Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan  will depend to a large extent how we are able to stop the dirtying of Bharat by stray dogs.  

Banning Import of Fish Without Corresponding Assurance of Supply is Meaningless

On the formalin in fish issue we are still going in circles with the Goan people continuing to be deprived of fish. The latest statement of CM Parrikar that he would extend the ban on imported fish if the people want to feel safer should have been backed up by the undertaking that once the fishing season starts next week, Goan trawlers would be asked to deliver their fish to local markets only. It is going to be close to one month now that the controversy has erupted and with not only the Goan people deprived of fish but the trade also suffering for lack of a proper decision in the matter. In contrast in neighbouring Maharashtra when there was the suspicion of formalin in fish in some markets from fish brought from outside the State last week CM Phadnavis immediately had the fish tested and after ensuring it was clear allowed the sale of fish and also set up a testing procedure across all major markets of seafood. There was no bickering about this, that and the other like we are seeing in Goa. The simple thing that could have been done in Goa was to immediately have all outside fish come to the Margao wholesale market where the FDA could have set up a temporary laboratory to test the fish for formalin and other adulterants and only with their clearance the fish would be allowed to be unloaded  and sold. As days passed this temporary lab could become a permanent facility. Also outstation suppliers would become wary knowing Goa's testing procedure and supply only good fish. What we are seeing is just a tamasha of banning without considering the needs of the people and the depriving of income of the trade particularly those for whom the daily earnings are important. Mr Parrikar, Clearly this is not a government that works! 

                                The Modus Operandi Of Lynching

The way the model for lynching works is that it is instigated by the BJP top leadership but since it happens in the States they can wash their hands of it since law and order is a State subject. Thus they have a deniability on the matter. This is the devious manner in which the lynching wave is being carried across India but unfortunately the majority of the incidents are happening in BJP ruled states which is coming back as a slap on the party's face. All this is part of a plan to orchestrate communal riots just prior to the General Elections. The BJP does this to boost their macho image which they believe makes them win elections in the Hindi heartland. You can see indicators of this with Ministers at the Centre accusing Congress and other Opposition parties of being communal and one Minister going to the extent of saying that more the lynchings, more the popularity of the PM! 

 

                                                   ****************************

Vox Populi Issue 241

                                                           VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 241                      Date: 23.07.2018                 
       Visit: skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:

1. Supreme Court Is Wrong In Allowing Women Between The Age Of 10-50 Years Into 

    The Sabarimalai Temple

2. Who's Communal - BJP or Congress?

3. Winning The No-Confidence Motion By The Opposition

4. Do Not Keep Adding People In Government 

5. Modi's Acche Din In Dreams Only

6. Investigate Formalin Issue Thoroughly To Make Fish Edible In Goa

7. Parrikar's Dilemma

8. Is There A Deal Within A Deal For Mallya, Nirav Modi & Choksi?

Supreme Court Is Wrong In Allowing Women Between The Age Of 10-50 Years Into The 

                                                   Sabarimalai Temple

The recent decision by the Supreme Court in allowing women of all ages on the basis of an equity with men into the Sabarimalai Temple is wrong. In matters of faith jurisprudence has no place and the courts and the judges should not interfere. This is being stated with no intention to be disrespectful to the judges including that of the Supreme Court who delivered the above judgment. The courts decide on matters put before them on the basis of the arguments put forward by opposing counsel and on the basis of their knowledge and existing precedents. In matters relating to faith in places of worship, this process is deficient since there is a broader aspect than what is presented by the various persons involved. The knowledge of the judges may also not cover the aspects that are brought out by the particular issue. In the matter at hand it was brought to the knowledge of the courts that the particular deity at the Sabarimalai Temple, Lord Ayyappan is a bachelor and to respect that status women between the ages of 10 - 50 be barred from entry. Also women who are menstruating are considered impure to participate in any Hindu religious ritual. It is not that they are excluded but they actually abstain from the religious ritual for the greater good of their families. Once their menstrual cycle is over they can participate in the rituals and then there is no discrimination. For the Sabarimalai Temple, there is also a purification period of 41 days that needs to be undergone by the visiting devotees which has been followed for generations and there is no necessity of this to be questioned since it is a matter of faith and is voluntary. It is not that this period has been made out to specifically exclude women from visiting the temple as it was made out in the Supreme Court judgment. Any of the arguments that we make to defend excluding women in the age group of 10 - 50 from entering the temple may be deficient because of our own limitations and could have been also related to the remote location of the temple and access to it in olden times may have been difficult or it could have been for the protection of women not to be caught in the multitudes of menfolk who throng the temple for the limited period it is kept open. It is also possible that those who formulated this regulation may have had greater knowledge about the matter and who unfortunately are not there to defend the matter. It is a known fact that as we are progressing through time as we see around us wisdom is depleting which could be another of the limitations that we have to defend the regulation. Thus as said earlier when it comes to matters of faith the courts should not interfere. Just to give an example and this is not to bring an inter-religious dimension to this issue but based on pure and simple logic. In the Christian faith the ordaining of saints is dependent on a certain number of miracles that the particular saint should have performed in the person's lifetime or after their death. These miracles are greatly suspect and will not stand the test that rationalists will put them to or those who are against superstition. So will the Supreme Court entertain a case if some lay person brings a case against naming a particular saint? Obviously not since it is a matter of religious faith for the particular community and supported by their internal institutionalised ordainment procedure. Another aspect related to this matter is that nowadays there are people who seek publicity for no reason except to satisfy their bloated egos. Thus in the matter of this judgment it can be said that the Supreme Court is pandering to these misguided and deviant elements within our society who take pleasure in bringing down established practices. The Supreme Court should have therefore recused themselves from this particular matter and referred it, if it so wished, to a panel of Hindu seers who would be better placed and be more competent to decide on the matter. Lately the Supreme Court has been a touch over-enthusiastic in taking up matters which may not necessarily be in their domain taking advantage of which there are petitioners who file cases in the hope of getting a judgment which makes the matter beyond the reach of any argument. The Supreme Court needs to be wary of such tendencies. A case in point of equivalence that can be cited is that the Mumbai High Court lately has been asking why so many abortion cases are coming to it since maybe i5 was more generous with its judgments in earlier cases. 

                                           Who's Communal - BJP or Congress?

Recently 2 Cabinet Ministers from the BJP have called the Congress party communal. This is clearly a case of the pot calling the kettle black. One of the Ministers has gone further and said that leading up to the 2019 General Elections the Congress party will play the communal card. It should not be that the BJP playing the game by using the aggressive posture of calling others what it actually is, deal out the first strike card by inciting communal riots. If you track the riots from near the turn of this century, there were the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and then 18 years later we had the 2002 Gujarat riots, so going by that chronology 2020 should be our date for the next major communal conflagration. It can be assumed that here is no harm if in the interest of the General Elections this event is preponed by a year or two to serve the agenda of either political party.

                               Winning The No-Confidence Motion By The Opposition

The way for the joint Opposition to win the the No-Confidence Motion that Parliament will be seized with tomorrow, Friday, 20th July 2018 is to get the disgruntled BJP MP's to abstain in the vote. At various times during the last couple of months it has been said that 50% of the sitting BJP MP's are not likely to get nominations in the upcoming General Elections and out of that some 50-60 from U.P alone. What the Congress and other Opposition parties supporting the No-Confidence Motion have to do is to persuade these MP's to go against the Whip that BJP will Issue and either stay away from Parliament tomorrow on some pretext or other or simply abstain at the t8me of voting. Voice vote or voting by show of hands should be avoided and electronic voting should be used. Postscript: On the night of 20th July 2018 what had to happen, happened in the Indian Parliament and the Opposition lost the vote-of-confidence by 325 - 126 to the BJP-led NDA Government. 

                             Do Not Keep Adding People In Government 

The issue of employment in government keeps coming back all the time in Goa. On the one hand it is clear that the government in Goa is overstaffed. Sometime back when the papers had done a survey it was found that one out of every 15-20 Goans works in the government or putting it another way almost every single family in Goa has at least one person working in government. So why does the government keep on recruiting people?  The CM himself has said that some 1000-1200 government jobs will be advertised in Aug - Sept 2018. Is this required? Why do they not re-deploy the surplus they have in overstaffed departments to others where people are needed? At the clerical level such re-deployment should be possible since specialised skills like for technical jobs are not required. Thus the new jobs could be held back to see if existing employees can be moved around. This is particular true in the context of the DDSSY scheme where the government proposes to run it & the newspapers indicated that there may be some hiring of people necessary for that. Not only that for any work that we see it is said that it has been given to consultants. Like for instance the survey of solid waste being generated across Goa to decide upon a plan for disposal of this. Do we need a consultant  for this? Can the Solid Waste Corporation personnel in association with the PWD not handle this? The approach should not be to have government employees idling and all work passed on to outside consultants. It is important as we go along that the size of the government should be reduced which in turn will result in reduced costs. This should be the approach of the government rather than keep burdening the exchequer. 

                                            Modi's Acche Din In Dreams Only

The much touted MSP hike for agriculture produce announced recently falls far short of the guaranteed 50% margin over costs that Modi had promised or that which the M S Swaminathan Committee had recommended. In fact the farmer’s margin has only increased by little. Will Modi explain why has he suddenly thought about farmers at the fag end of his term in office? He is as much responsible for neglecting farmer's interests as the Congress or the other Opposition parties. What was he doing all along since 2014 when he came into office? Maharashtra the Death State for farmers and a BJP run State has reported 695 farmer suicides, the maximum among all other States, in the first quarter of 2017.  Similarly there is a health insurance scheme launched by the Central government that quotes big numbers on coverage but if you look at the budgets provided for the scheme on claim payouts, it amounts to only Rs. 20 per person. This is the chicanery that this government is playing on its people. All bluff and bluster, hardly any truth in any of the schemes. The excuse is that this is an election year and we have to tolerate this! 

                 Investigate Formalin Issue Thoroughly To Make Fish Edible In Goa

The formalin in fish coming into Goa controversy refuses to die down and is taking many different turns by the day. At the end of it all we will be told that there was no formalin in the fish at all, the FDA will give a clean chit to the fish coming in from other States and as if by magic all the fish would have been cleansed off formalin. But that is not the truth of the matter.

It is not only Goa but other major fish eating States like Bengal, Assam and Orissa have found formalin in the fish consignments that they have been receiving from other States at this same time, the principal culprit in all likelihood being Andhra Pradesh. The ministers who are waxing eloquent on the matter may also tell us that given the fact that we have been eating formalin with our fish for at least the last 10 years, the formalin concentration in our body is saturated for the level to get cancer. Therefore if we eat fish containing formalin now, it really does not matter!

Ten years is being stated since China has been doing this for ages and close to five years ago they were banned from selling seafood into the US for following unhygienic and hazardous practices including use of formalin. With the age of instant communication that we have seen since like with the Net and mobile usage, the idea of using formalin for preserving fish would have come to India particularly where long distance transportation is involved. Across the country it is known that Hilsa from Gujarat would be shipped to Bengal involving at least 5-7 days in road transit and therefore preservation would be an issue. That is where formalin is coming into the picture. In places like Goa where in the monsoon months fishing is banned, the fish comes from distant States like Orissa and Andhra Pradesh involving 4-5 days of roadtransit. Even at other times of the year to meet excess demand fish is brought in from the adjoining and above named States. So here again formalin came into the picture. Andhra Pradesh has been named principal offender by the Bengal FDA authorities from where annually almost 1 lakh tonnes of fish is brought into Bengal. So finding formalin in fish in Goa is not unusual since we also get our fish from the same sources. Once the fish coming from outside States is known to the trade here as containing formalin, will our people be it the wholesalers or retailers lag behind in using it. No, they will use it at times of excess supply or to streamline irregularities of supply and for holding buffer stocks. And by now it has become regular practice. So all of us have been eating formalin laced fish all along.

Therefore the FDA when they raided the Margao market did Goans a great service by bringing out the formalin issue into the open. At least now it will be tackled. The concerned official in FDA who exposed the matter to the media should be complimented and not criticised for acting in the public good. The only thing about the FDA is that they should do these raids on a regular basis and not necessarily on fish alone but all food items. Then they would be acting according to their charter of operations.

All those Ministers who tried to influence the FDA to change their report about the formalin content in the fish should be publicly castigated. Public health should be first and not the wholesale and retail trade in fish and their profits. As for the head of the wholesale fish trading body an enquiry should be launched to find out if he was aware that formalin was being used by his suppliers from other States to preserve the fish and whether the wholesalers are complicit themselves in using formalin. If so they should be  proceeded to be charged on a criminal basis for manslaughter. Why the CM has to get involved in this matter defies comprehension since by saying that he is personally looking into the matter, will the formalin in the fish disappear? He should have left the matter to be dealt by the concerned Minister. Interestingly there has not been a beep from the Fisheries Minister Palyekar on the matter with everybody including the Opposition parties giving opinions, a dime a dozen. Does Palyekar's silence mean that he was all along aware that formalin was being used to preserve the fish? This was the man who had said that he would ensure that fish becomes affordable to Goans which has not happened and there is his ministry official saying that their job is to take care of the interest of fishermen and once the fish reaches the jetties their job is over and from then on where the fish goes or is sold at what price, is none of their business!  This one would say is the height of irresponsibility. 

                                                     Parrikar's Dilemma

It is said that anything that is conceived in an irregular manner will not have anything good come out of it. It will get its due or meet its final proper destiny sooner or later. So is the fate of this coalition government led by the BJP in Goa. Having snatched the opportunity to form the government away from the Congress which was the largest single party after the election results had come out, it is now close to meeting its end, what with almost every single minister of its Cabinet falling sick with serious and debilitating health issues. One could say it  is a 'sick' Cabinet. First it was Manohar Parrikar who was diagnosed with a serious ailment that required him to go to the US for treatment and it is learnt that he will have to travel again to that country for further treatment. Then it was Pandurang Madkaikar who was felled by a brain stroke at Mumbai and has not recovered fully to be able to resume his official duties. It was then the turn of Sudin Dhavlikar having to undergo an angioplasty again at Mumbai and was last reported to be in the ICU. Even before that it was Vishnu Wagh, the Dy. Speaker who again had a stroke and is unlikely to recover from it as per last reports. Thus it is best that Manohar Parrikar  recognises that he should call off this bad deal since in any case he will have to name someone else as Chief Minister. Upon doing that with internal bickering this government will surely fall. So the best is to read the writing on the wall and call the Congress' bluff and hold mid-term elections either immediately or along with the 2019 General Elections and be the first to join the One Nation - One Poll proposition of Narendra Modi. The other day in the papers it was debated why Parrikar can or cannot allocate the portfolios of the sick Ministers to others or even name some new ministers to the Cabinet. At the present moment the ministries under these sick Ministers are being handled by the Chief Minister himself, some 26 with the Monsoon Assembly session looming on the horizon. Parrikar needs to know better and should not overstrain himself considering the state of his health. At the same time he cannot name others as ministers to replace the sick ones since the supporters of the sick Ministers will ask Parrikar, why he has not named an alternate Chief Minister? In chess, this called Check & Mate. 

              Is There A Deal Within A Deal For Mallya, Nirav Modi & Choksi?

In the high profile scam cases like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi etc. the modus operandi of the investigating authorities and the government is to feed media with whatever action that they are taking to show that they are doing something. But if you assess the news about seizures made and the value thereof, you will find compared to the scale of the scam and its consequent liability, the value of property seized be it movable or immovable is peanuts. Thus it is best that the authorities have a SOP of giving reports on such cases to the media on a regular timeline basis unless there is something sensational that needs to be publicised. The recent offer by Vijay Mallya, to pay back his debts from his property valued at Rs. 13,000 crores is yet another scam since firstly, the valuation is suspect since none of his properties that went up for auction fetched anywhere near his declared value or even their market value and secondly, if you read between the lines in this report where mention of his letters to the PM & the FM are mentioned, there seems to be a quiet deal in the offing which is natural considering that the 2019 elections are around the corner and the BJP needs money to fight the elections. So it would not be surprising if starting with Mallya, the first offender or poster boy of scams, as he himself put it, may be completely absolved followed by Nirav Modi & then Choksi, with the aam admi holding the bucket for the losses of the PSB's. 

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