Vox Populi Issue 279

VOX POPULI                                                                         by                                                                   S Kamat                                                                          as                                                                 Aam Admi                                            Issue: 279                      Date: 29.04.2019                     Visit: skamat.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com Contents:        1. Modi's Bag Of Dirty Tricks At Play During The Elections 2. Of Poetess Laureates, Bank Of England Governors & Curry & CTM 3. The EVM & Indian Elections                     Modi's Bag Of Dirty Tricks At Play During The Elections Narendra Modi has been trying to use every trick in the book to subvert the rules of the Election Commission relating to campaigning for elections. Thus starting from the Namo web series to Namo TV to Namo biopic to the interview with Akshay Kumar, he has been trying to subvert the regulations and influence the voter every which way. Though the EC has put its foot down, better late than ever, on the web series and declared that Namo TV cannot show political content except for maybe transmitting live the election speeches made by the Prime Minister and delayed the release of the biopic. These have been calculated and calibrated steps by Narendra Modi  to take undue advantage and influence the voter much before the election campaign began. He cannot claim innocence and profess that he is not aware of all these methods that were used to promote him in the minds of the people. That would be insulting the intelligence of not only him but the people of India. That as Prime Minister he is using these questionable tactics speaks of his compulsive desire to win the elections at any cost and not following the precept of a level playing ground indicates flaws in his leadership makeup. Apart from that Narendra Modi tends to play naive in some of his statements. Like when the EC asked that the armed forces should not be drawn into the election campaign and incidents like Pulwama and Balakot be avoided, he asked - If farmers deaths can be brought up in elections then why not those of soldiers. This is a matter of debate for the next elections but for the present one when the EC has put out a stricture is it not Modi's duty to follow it being the Prime Minister? Similarly, when the question of Sadhvi Pragya's nomination for the Bhopal seat came up for criticism, he had said that if Malegaon was terror, was the 1984 Sikh killings not terror? If as Prime Minister, Narendra Modi cannot make a distinction between Malegaon and even the Samjhauta Express blasts which were deliberate and planned to kill people and put through with a twisted objective in mind, the Sikh killings in 1984 were the consequence of an emotional upsurge upon the assassination of a sitting Prime Minister. That the 1984 Sikh killings  were used by certain people to carry out their personal agendas in playing up to the rulers that be is a completely different matter. Narendra Modi  himself is not new  to this since the 2002 Gujarat riots were a similar emotional upsurge because of the Godhra carnage in which because of the slaughter of Hindus on the train, hundreds of Muslims were killed. And Modi had at that time allowed the communal mobs to vent their fury across Gujarat for 3-4 days without raising a finger. So by Modi's definition, if this was terror does it not make him an accessory after the fact and thus a terrorist.                   Of Poetess Laureates, Bank Of England Governors & Curry & CTM It was in the papers that Imtiaz Dharker, the mother of the actress Ayesha Dharker, is likely to be named as the Poet Laureate for England following in the footsteps of another lady from whom she will be taking over, who was the first lady to hold the coveted post. I am not sure if Imtiaz is the wife of Anil Dharker from BBY, a literary figure in his own right, controversial also, and which is most likely. Raghuram Rajan, the noted economist who was our earlier RBI Governor, unceremoniously given the boot last year by not giving him the customary second term extension is No. 2 on the list for the Bank of England Governor post. The pay is £480,000 per year. Who says being an economist means you have to economise on your finances?  For long, curry has been the favourite food of the Brits with CTM - Chicken Tikka Masala topping the list of most ordered food in the UK. Thus be it culture, be it finance and even food Indians are most likely to control the minds, wallets and stomachs of the British. We can then maybe say that the British Raj has been reversed completely.                                           The EVM & Indian Elections The EVM, rightly so, has become the central figure in Indian elections but the unfortunate part is that it has come for a lot of unfair criticism mostly from those that end up losing elections on it being manipulated. The first series of EVM's were made in 1989 by BEL & ECIL who continue to be the present vendors to the Election Commission from a common design. The singular characteristic of the EVM is that it is a stand-alone device with its software resident in an EEPROM, at least for the first series of production. The stand-alone feature makes the machine impervious to being manipulated like if it were connected to the Internet or having wireless connectivity when it could have been tampered with through remote means. If you have to manipulate the EVM now you have to be in possession of the machine which explains why the EC takes so much precautions of the security for the EVM. Again the EEPROM resident software to be manipulated needs the person tampering it firstly, to be in possession of the EVM and then secondly, have an external programming device like an UV (Ultra Violet) Reader and Writer. This complexity is what makes the EVM tamper-proof. A number of political parties have said that nowhere in the world do they use the EVM but in India. The reason for that is that most countries like the US and Europe tried with machines linked to the Internet and with wireless connectivity which fell foul as said earlier of the tamper proof necessity. We therefore need to appreciate our designers at BEL & ECIL who came up with this unique design which has stood the test of time for close to three decades for almost all elections held in India. However, the number of failures of the EVM's in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections is somewhat distressing whether in the Ballot board or Control Unit or with the VVPAT which has brought another dimension to the machine. Like they say the more number of sub-systems you have the more likely are the chances of failure of one or the other. But apart from that fact there seems to be some lacunae in the production quality of the EVM's and then in their subsequent handling by the EC and those involved in conducting the elections. These processes need to be tightened. As for manufacturing quality both vendors have from the first manufacture been rushed for time by the EC and have to take extraordinary steps to meet the deadlines of large volume delivery. These rush-rush delivery stipulations do not allow for quality to be consistently maintained and built-in across the large volume of machines that are put through. Therefore in-process manufacturing methods need to be tightened. As for testing once the EVM's are to be deployed it is more a procedural issue and rigorous testing and an adherence to the testing manual and proper training of staff of both EC and officials that conduct the elections, should address these issues. The problem has been that when the criticism of the usage of EVM's is increasing it is then that the failures have also been increasing. Therefore the EC and both BEL & ECIL need to put their heads together and combat this criticism for a machine that has stood the test of time, as said earlier. There is one other thing about the EVM and that is, we should de-criminalise the fact that you cannot complain about its working after using it. The reason for this is the EVM is a tool of democracy and we should not stifle the voice of the people if they have any problems in using it. The levels of education in India of voters is diverse and illiterate voters may have a genuine grievance while casting their vote though there maybe others who deliberately desire to create nuisance. But even one vote with a genuine grievance should not be disregarded. The EC should take a broader view on this matter and either have the existing rule and publicise it vigorously but not implement it, thus using it as a deterrent. Or have re-polling if the number of complaints seriously affect polling on the election day in the particular booths with a different EVM which will install confidence in the people that democracy really works.                                                           **************************

Vox Populi Issue 278

VOX POPULI                                                                         by                                                                   S Kamat                                                                          as                                                                 Aam Admi                                            Issue: 278                      Date: 22.04.2019                     Visit: skamat.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com   Contents:          1. Justice Gogoi Did Not Follow The Principle Of Natural Justice  2. The BJP Is Best Advised To Pull Out Sadhvi Pragya From The Election Fray  3. Are Turf Wars Linked To Uncoordinated Raids By Financial Enforcement Agencies               Justice Gogoi Did Not Follow The Principle Of Natural Justice  The news that Justice Gogoi, Chief Justice Of India has been accused of sexual harassment was sensational and more so was the expediency and despatch with which Justice Gogoi convened a Special Bench to hear the matter with himself sitting on it though he left the announcement of the order to one of the other judges on the bench. Now consider the matter in its totality without being biased as to the position held by the accused and the fact that that the complainant was a woman and it was a sexual harassment issue. Justice Gogoi should have waited and set up a separate Bench as has been done now with Justice Bobde heading it and waited for its deliberations to see whether it clears him of the allegations or not. Instead of that he went ahead and played out a drama of how onerous and important a job that he is holding with many important judgments coming up ahead of him in the coming week. And how he has foregone material rewards to serve in his position and that these allegations are below his dignity to address. These arguments are emotional and have no place in a court of law where the accused stands stripped of his position and judgment should focus on the accusations and not on the accuser. This Justice Gogoi also did by almost naming the accuser, her husband and her brother-in-law giving their criminal histories so that by a system of triangulation you can arrive at the identity of those that are being hinted of.  Thus what transpired during the hearing of the Special Bench was the sacrifice of the principle of natural justice, the playing out that India remains a paternalistic and position conscious society where the people lower down the pecking order, more so women, have no chance to seek fair and equitable justice. The accusations may be false, motivated and instigated as alleged but the manner in which Justice Gogoi came across at the accuser was like using a Bofors gun to kill a chicken. This clearly was patently unfair and Justice Gogoi did not serve the ends of justice by what he did in the matter. One hopes that the new Bench will come out with the truth exonerating Justice Gogoi and punishing the accuser as appropriate to her offence. As to Justice Gogoi whether he should continue in the chair he occupies is up to him to decide since he may not be guilty but he needs to ask himself that as holding the highest office for justice in the land did he uphold the principle of natural justice in this matter?            The BJP Is Best Advised To Pull Out Sadhvi Pragya From The Election Fray    In nominating Sadhvi Pragya from Bhopal the BJP will meet its Waterloo in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. Narendra Modi's impudence in first approving her nomination and then defending it will come a cropper as May 23 comes around. The BJP poll pundits may have done their calculations while giving her the ticket but one knows Bhopal as a city with a sizeable Muslim population which will surely work against the BJP candidate. In claiming that Sadhvi Pragya's nomination and forecasting her victory to demolish the label of Hindu terror, Narendra Modi has shown his and the BJP's communal agenda in supporting a terrorist. Narendra Modi the self-proclaimed fighter against terrorism around the world has succumbed and sided with a terrorist thus proving that his campaign against terror rings hollow. Irrespective of whether or not Sadhvi Pragya is convicted for the Malegaon bomb blast or not for which she is on bail the fact remains there is enough evidence that she was involved in terror activities both in its planning and execution. That is the reason why she should not have been nominated by the BJP for the Lok Sabha elections. Narendra Modi needs to also understand and differentiate between those on bail for civil offences and those involved in criminal and terror related offences. He often changes his colours as a chameleon does like in the instance of Karkare. Modi visited their home after Karkare's death at the hands of the Pakistan terrorists to commiserate with the family and offer them Rs. 1 crore for being martyred which the late wife of Karkare had refused. But now he is singing a different tune about Karkare and charging him with torturing Sadhvi Pragya. Simply put Modi lacks the quality of being steadfast on any issue and will change the dialogue to suit his present narrative. This is just to make short term gains or simply to prove a point in a debate or fit an argument. As for the torture of Sadhvi Pragya the same finicky process of thinking persists with Modi. Where he claims that he has been cleared of any guilt related to the Gujarat riots in 2002 because of a Supreme Court judgment and flaunts that clean chit around, in the context of Sadhvi Pragya he is refusing to accept the Supreme Court judgment which said that her claims of torture were baseless. This is a typical example of the classic saying that says - What is good for the goose is not good for the gander. As for Sadhvi Pragya she suffers from an advanced case of the foot-in-the-mouth disease. Symptoms of this have already emerged with her Karkare curse and that since she apologised for her comment, she has asked whether those who tortured her will now apologise. Her fevered mind probably does not realise that when there was no torture, where is the question of an apology? These are early days and Modi will realise what a liability he has picked up in this self-styled sadhvi. Modi cannot pull her out now but a diplomatic way out of the embarrassment would be to get her nomination papers rejected on the basis of some technicality to save the BJP's face, that is if Modi is bothered about the party's reputation.          Are Turf Wars Linked To Uncoordinated Raids By Financial Enforcement Agencies   That DMK Kanimozhi's house was being raided by the IT Dept. was the Breaking News on TV on the night of 16th April 2019. The next morning the newspapers carried the news that the raid did not reveal anything and was based on a 'false tip-off'. The IT Dept. seems to very agile when it comes to conducting raids on parties or agencies or people opposed to the present government. Also the TV news on 16th night indicated that the tip-off was that cash had been stashed in the first floor of the house. Now at election times, is not seizures of cash under the purview of the Election Commission - EC? So is the IT Dept. overstepping its boundaries and even if it had received the tip-off should they not have referred the matter to the EC. More so because Kanimozhi is contesting the elections from Tutikodi. Why is the IT Dept. so over-jealous in the performance of their responsibilities just prior to the elections which we do not see at other times? The raids now on politicians to look for cash is like going at harvest time to the Hapus mango orchards in Ratnagiri where you are bound to get some mangoes at the least. But if Kanimozhi has managed to get a clean chit, smart girl - she has managed to stay one step ahead of the IT Dept. Not only that the IT Dept. upon not getting anything at Kanimozhi's house tried to twist the story that it was not a raid but a 'surveillance' action. That still does not explain the timing of the raid just 2 days before the election date in Tutikodi! Not only that the IT Dept. per their latest instructions did not keep the EC informed about their plan to raid Kanimozhi's house. Was this deliberate? This instruction had been given to the Secretary of the Revenue Dept. by the Chief Election Commissioner - CEC after a meeting over the unbridled random raids that the financial enforcement agencies were conducting mostly against the Opposition parties. At that time the Revenue Dept. Secretary had the temerity to tell the CEC that they should be more active in seizing cash that was moving around in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections. In a sense this seemed to be asking the EC to lay off the domain of the IT, ED & the DRI. A clear turf war as it were was shaping up and maybe not informing the EC about the Tutikodi raid was part of that agenda. Under the present government this is how our governmental agencies have become extra-constitutional authorities filled with their own importance which makes them disregard any controls put into their area of operations. Or maybe they have the ear of the PMO and can count on support from that quarter if at all they are questioned or fall into a soup.                                                     ******************************

Vox Populi Issue 277

                                                            VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 277                      Date: 15.04.2019

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

 

Contents:       

1. Nirmala Sitharaman's Immaturities On The Rafael Deal 

2. Deliberate & Orchestrated Raids By  Financial Enforcement 

    Agencies To Cow Down Opposition

3. Modi's Campaign Style In Present Lok Sabha Elections 

                                 

                       Nirmala Sitharaman's Immaturities On The Rafael Deal 

Nirmala Sitharaman as Defence Minister needs to brush up on government procedural matters and diplomatic protocol. This comment is being made in the context of the latest news from France as published by Le Monde, their leading newspaper, that Anil Ambani's Co., Reliance Flag had been given a substantial concession on tax running into millions of Euros, months after the Rafael deal was signed. That Nirmala Sitharaman voluntarily issued a statement that this had nothing to do with the Rafael deal made her sound like wanting to clarify the matter before any question about it was raised, making us feel that was there really a link? Like they say there is no smoke without a fire and then saying there is no smoke, no smoke when you can actually see it makes one ask - Where is the fire? The other thing it also seemed as she was the spokesperson for Anil Ambani, clarifying on his behalf where actually it was Ambani who should have come out and said that there is no connection between the tax refund and the Rafael deal, which he did but later. As for the truth of the matter only the prime players can tell like the then President of France, Narendra Modi and Anil Ambani but one must say that France as a country thrives on controversy and in international deals things like this can happen and the tax refund may have been part of the package given Ambani along with the Rafael offset deal. Coming back to Nirmala Sitharaman and her somewhat blaise  comments, just after the Supreme Court recently junked the AG's argument that the 'stolen' Rafael documents could not be accepted by the Court, she had said that Rahul Gandhi without knowing the full story is going to town with bits and pieces of the Rafael deal. What choice does the poor fellow have since those who have the full story will not come out with it, that is why he has to make do with the bits and pieces hoping one day that he will have the whole. It is time therefore that Nirmala Sitharaman puts out a White Paper on the Rafael deal. 

                   Deliberate & Orchestrated Raids By  Financial Enforcement Agencies 

                                                 To Cow Down Opposition

Arun Jaitley's claim that the raids by the IT, DRI & ED on mostly the Opposition parties and in States that are not run by BJP governments are based on inputs received and actual data need to be taken with a pinch of salt. If you look at the statistics of raids since 2014 almost all the raids conducted by the above named financial agencies have been against those inimical to the BJP. The present raids and those in the past show a clear agenda by the incumbent BJP government to intimidate or one can say even terrorise those that are opposed to its policies and programs. In the context of the present raids it is a known fact that in India cash is used during elections as an incentive to buy votes. So it does not need a large amount of intelligence or exceptional competence to raid the functionaries of political parties and seize large amounts of cash. If the financial agencies had raided the BJP party functionaries they would have found similar amounts of unaccounted cash. In fact there have been reports that in Andhra Pradesh a large amount of cash was recovered from a BJP leader and in Itanagar in Arunachal a Pradesh one of the cars in the PM's convoy moving to a political rally was found with cash in excess of Rs. 1 crore. Thus there seems to be a deliberate plan to use government machinery to serve the political ends of the BJP in the run up to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. At the same time the incumbent BJP government seems to be hesitant and chary to use the same enforcement machinery against its crony industrialists like the Ambani brothers. Apart from the quid pro quo of Anil Ambani getting not only the Rafael offset contract but also the tax refund on his Reliance Flag Co. deal that was hanging fire for years and which was cleared months after Narendra Modi signed the Rafael jet deal, we have the Dutch Co. involved in supplying equipment and material to a major gas pipeline Co. in India being hauled up in the Dutch courts for having laundered money in excess of US $ 1 Billion by overinvoicing and then channelising this money to a Singapore family owned Co. that is linked to the Indian Co. The media has attributed this to the Reliance Group of Cos. run by Mukesh Ambani, though the Group itself has denied any links with the Dutch case. This is a clear case where a large amount of money is involved for our enforcement agencies to ask the Dutch police or through government to government channels to get details of the Indian Co. so that this amount can be chased and brought back into the country. If this is done then at least some part of the promise that Narendra Modi made in 2014 to bring back black money from abroad can be achieved. Otherwise what has happened is that instead of black money coming back to India, we have had those with black money leaving the country at regular intervals like Vijay Mallya, Choksi, Nirav Modi and others so that they can enjoy their ill-gotten wealth abroad. Even in the manner that these named people have left the country there are pointers to large scale corruption being involved within the PMO, finance ministry officials, CBI, DRI & ED. Thus for all of Narendra Modi's claim of being a chowkidar his role even in that role has been at most patchy with the blackguards running circles around him and fooling him completely. 

                        Modi's Campaign Style In Present Lok Sabha Elections 

Narendra Modi comes across as a personality who thrives on controversy, is cheeky, chafes at restrictions and wants to push the boundaries. He has also a cockiness about him making him want to see how far he can go without being questioned or pulled up. Representative of these traits were the ASAT announcement, Modi biopic and NAMO TV  which are all clear pointers to skirt the boundaries of democratic norms and thus seek undue advantage in the upcoming elections.

Such behaviour is unacceptable in a leader at the level of leading a nation like that of a Prime Minister. The cutting corners syndrome by a leader encourages the people down the line to also do the same in their own way and manner which may end up in taking the law into their own hands. If the people exceed the boundaries such leaders are unable to pull them up. In the context of Modi we have seen this happening when the intolerance debate commenced soon after he assumed office then the lynching cases emerged linked to cow slaughter and beef eating. The long drawn out silence, reminiscent of his silence during the Gujarat riots,  not only encouraged the perpetrators but prompted the leaders in the BJP hierarchy make conflicting statements getting the party deeper into the morass of controversy. Even now on the beef eating issue we have a case in Assam where an elderly Muslim was assaulted and forcefully fed pork. This latter aspect of feeding pork is a new  dimension to the brutality being inflicted on simple folk going about their livelihood.

Again an orchestration is apparent in trying to take undue advantage in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections like in the planned release of the Modi biopic and the launch of NAMO TV along with coordinated raids by the IT, ED & other financial law enforcement on non-NDA parties and in States ruled by Opposition parties. This is apparent in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Just prior to elections if the raids are conducted then the authorities are bound to find something since the targeted entities are equal to sitting ducks. The same applies to the Agusta Westland case where the leaks about naming Ahmed Patel and the Gandhi family seem to be timely and the ED & DRI are playing the dumb ones by asking for a report on how the chargesheet was leaked to the press after maybe themselves putting it out. Michel, the Italian in custody in the Agusta Westland case has in the meanwhile said that he has not named anybody as being connected to him or as beneficiaries in India of the helicopter largesse.

Thus if you put all this together you will see we are no different from any country in Africa or that in Central Asia who use any and every means to tomtom their own views and publicise themselves during elections while going after their competitors or adversaries again with every means at their disposal to terrorise the opposition into submission or at the least unbalance them and disrupt their campaigns for the elections. 

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Vox Populi Issue 276

                                                            VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 276                     Date: 08.04.2019

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

 

Contents:       

1. Closure Of A Highway In Kashmir

2. Modi On The Campaign Trail & His Innings Since 2014

3. Hindu Terror Does Exist

4. Dispense With Foreign Experts Of Indian Origin

                                         Closure Of A Highway In Kashmir

Those who talk of nationalism, claiming to protect the nation are unable to secure a highway in Kashmir from Jammu to Srinagar and for that penalise common citizens by banning them from using the highway. The Pulwama incident was a clear security failure and completely amateurish in allowing a private vehicle come anywhere near the buses carrying the CRPF jawans. It was only after the blast that it was found that the car was loaded with explosives. The martyrdom of the jawans was hyped so that the negligence of the authorities responsible for the incident is hidden. The succeeding incident when another private vehicle went up in flames near about the same place of the Pulwama incident attributed to a gas cylinder burst prompted the authorities to ban private vehicular traffic on the highway. Highways are for the local people to move about in doing their daily lives and for civilian traffic and should be kept open at all cost particularly in areas of hilly and difficult terrain. The use of these highways by our armed forces and paramilitary forces should be incidental to their use by civilian traffic and should in no way curb it. If our government cannot think of ways and means to protect a single highway between Jammu and Srinagar, how can we expect them to secure the nation against the enemy? The curtailment of civilian traffic on some days of the above highway is an admission of defeat and a sign of cowardice that is being signalled by this government. Yet again it has been proven that the nationalist jingoism balloon touted to the skies by the present regime is filled with gas. At the first sign of direct or indirect enemy action this government trembles, knocking its knees together and retreats behind closed doors and puts restrictions on its people who have no choice but to follow these inane and irresponsible instructions. That the people of Jammu & Kashmir have come out in protest against the injunction not to use the highway between Jammu and Srinagar on some days is but natural. We need to support them in their cause since we may see a replication of the same thing where each one of us stay by being told that you cannot use a thoroughfare right in front of your house. 

                             Modi On The Campaign Trail & His Innings Since 2014

Narendra Modi and to a lesser extent his Man Friday, Amit Shah seem to have a massive fixation about the Nehru-Gandhi name and the family in the context of India. One needs to thank Modi for not starting to pick on Mahatma Gandhi yet. But one never knows, maybe he is waiting to do that if and when he gets a second term. Talking about a second term, one would have thought that Modi having got a first term in office in 2014 would in the campaign for 2019 concentrate on his achievements. But he seems to be suffering from selective amnesia and mostly one would believe that the last 5 years have been wiped out from his memory. This is natural also because these have been painful years for India under Modi's rule. People are unable to forget the 'surgical strikes' of Demonetisation and GST launched against them and then the famine of cash in the economy because of the misadventure to forge India into a 'cashless' economy. Subsequently the lack of jobs for people due to lack of economic growth and the after effects of the above 'surgical strikes' has led to a deep disenchantment with the present  government. The people have seen muddle headed implementation of high sounding plans and programs leading to more and more confusion. 

As for Modi's anathema to the Nehru-Gandhi name, whatever said and done these people like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and then Rajiv Gandhi have contributed to what India is today. This cannot be denied or negated. Modi picks on the mistakes or errors made by these leaders conveniently ignoring their positive contribution to the Indian nation and its economy. Criticism is all fine if it is balanced but not partisan. The other thing is that since Independence it was not only the Nehru-Gandhi family which built India. There were others also who brought India to where we stand today like Rajendra Prasad, S Radhakrishnan, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai, Atal Behari Vajpayee and others. Does Modi want us to forget the contribution of all these leaders? Are we to fall in line behind Modi chanting that he is the only leader who can do right? This when there are visibly no achievements to speak of that can be attributed to Modi.

 Modi needs to realise that you cannot negate the past because then you are negating the present. If you negate the past then you become rootless and will tend to drift along on the path of your present endeavours. The fact that we are enjoying a certain quality of life today is because there were definitely some achievements in the past. Everything was not bad. Even Modi and his cohorts are taking advantage of these now like better communication, better transportation  facilities and improved technology. All these were not 'swayambhu' developments, some one must have sweated to get these done. So we need to be a little grateful to those who travelled the road before us. The other thing is that to be severely critical you need to have made as said earlier some earth shattering progress yourself. Can Modi speak of any achievement of his that has led to a better quality of life for the Indian people?

Narendra Modi has been harping on corruption by previous governments mostly Congress and also among the leaders of the regional parties. Now these are judgmental pronouncements. How clean are Modi's hands and that of the  BJP are to be seen. It is too early to tell. However going by the fact that criminal cases among the BJP in the present Lok Sabha was the highest among all other parties and the choice of people like B S Yediyurappa in Karnataka belie the claim of purity made by Modi. There is another perspective that one must share in the context of corruption. Corruption is endemic in developing nations and this pattern has been seen across the world. India cannot be any different but maybe you can control the incidence of corruption and its extent as well as rapacity. One needs to go back in time and cite the case of LN Mishra from Bihar who was the Railway Minister in one of Indira Gandhi's Cabinet. He was considered one of the most corrupt but at the same time he was accessible and worked for the people. It was for this reason that we was liked by the people. The lesson is as long as the political leaders deliver on their work for the people we need to accept a little bit of corruption. This is not to condone corruption but to recognise a fact and accept it. The other thing is that people will  not mind that their leaders are corrupt as long as they are left unaffected and are allowed to live their humdrum lives. Modi's anti-corruption plank is also debatable since it is yet to be proven in his personal case like in the Rafael deal. Even for all his talk about being a chowkidar we have seen that he has done little on the corruption front since coming to power in 2014. If he had been serious then at the least 6 or even more of the Opposition leaders should have been jailed by now. Thus Modi as we have seen  rarely practises what he preaches. His pronouncements are more for the consumption of others and the media than for himself. We also need to look at another aspect and that is both Modi and Amit Shah, the No. 1 & No. 2 of the BJP are survivors of cases against them in criminal courts for the Gujarat riots and murder respectively. So to be rational and practical, we need to ask - Whom should people trust, those who are corrupt or those who have the cold blooded propensity to kill or order killing?

Modi in the 2014 election capitalised on being called a chaiwallah and in this election campaign is going to town with his chowkidar appellation. This is a low brow appeal to capture the imagination of the aam admi. An attempt to equate himself with the common man by projecting that he is like the chaiwallah and the chowkidar. But this is not true. The other day for going to a meeting at the BJP HQ on Ashoka Road he was shown arriving in his bullet proof  BMW, a distance of less than 5 Km. from his residence. He enjoys the trappings and perquisites of office to the full. His penchant for changing his clothes multiple times through the day is well-known and his vanity exposed with the monogrammed surname on the cloth of the Nehru jacket that he wore at the beginning of his term. Even at election meetings he keeps his distance from the people and you rarely see him mingling with the crowd like other leaders. So one needs to prick and blow the persona balloon that Modi is bent upon creating since that and the person Modi are miles apart.  

The people of India had blessed Modi and the BJP with a massive majority in 2014 which has been frittered away in the last 5 years with wasteful and misplaced activity and the reason for that is Modi's obsession to build a personality cult and surround himself with yes-men which have kept India away from any meaningful development. This was not what the people expected and they have been betrayed simply because there is no imagination with Modi to think beyond his agenda. 

                                                 Hindu Terror Does Exist

The comment made by Narendra Modi that our 5000 year old history shows that there was no Hindu involved in terror is absolutely wrong. If you consider just the last 50 years  when the Naxalite movement was spawned in Naxalbari and Srikakulam and which continues to this day as the Red Swathe that runs through northern Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and into Nepal, the members of these terror groups and mostly their leaders were predominantly Hindu. Other than this there are other random terror attacks which can be ascribed to misguided Hindus. Even now there are many court cases pending where Hindus have been involved in terror including the case of the 6 odd activists who were arrested a few months ago on charges of fomenting terror and to 'assassinate the prime minister'. Terror as has been said has no religion and therefore any attempt to proscribe it as belonging to certain religions is completely irresponsible since it deviates from the focus in destroying terror activity. At the same time Modi giving a carte blanche to Hindus on terror is also incorrect. Also Modi should desist from making sweeping statements that are patently erroneous. Modi tends to have this penchant of wanting to rewrite history which he should refrain from since these random forays by him and his henchmen only end in distorting it and make them look like fools.

                        Dispense With Foreign Experts Of Indian Origin

If there is one thing that one can agree with Arun Jaitley, it is his recent statement that ex-Governors of the RBI should refrain from politicking. He was obviously referring to Raghuram Rajan who a few days ago had questioned the 7% GDP growth to add a few more arrows into the Congress' quivers who have been trying to corner the incumbent government on growth figures. It is not only Raghuram Rajan but also Arvind Subramanian, the ex-CEA and Arvind Panagariya, the ex- Vice Chairman of the Niti Aayog who put in their hollow two pennies of wisdom on India's economic policies, nice in a while after leaving India's shores. All the above named 3 individuals are from American academia  and who taking advantage of the liberal leave and sabbatical programs prevailing there come across to India for their random 'vacations' or extended stays for their home country personal agendas. When these agendas are over, they give vague and puerile reasons and return to the comfort of their foreign havens. This can be for simple reasons or if their vanity is hurt, for instance if their term is not extended. Another thing about these out-of-country experts, they do not seem to be governed by the normal rules for our bureaucrats like publishing their views on matters relating to their assignments while in India. These people put out books and write in our media sometimes on contentious as well as controversial issues which at times may not be very proper. For this we cannot blame nay them but also Indian media who seem to pursue them vigorously. Like our bureaucrats have a cooling period that after retirement or superannuation they cannot take up any assignment in line with their professional expertise for a period of some 3 years  in particularly the private sector and are also covered by the Official Secrets Act for matters related to their work, some such ruling must be put in the contracts of these foreign professionals of Indian origin who come to work here. Actually there is no need for us to get these kind of people since we have enough expertise within the country and we need to give a chance to our local experts. Our own people are familiar with local conditions and will bring more effectiveness to the job, one believes. At most foreign experts can be brought in as short-term or as specific assignment based consultants. 

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Vox Populi Issue 275

                                                            VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 275                      Date: 01.04.2019

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

 

Contents:       

1. Modi The Narcissist Should Be Pulled Up By The Election Commission: ASAT 

    Announcement & The Election Code of Conduct 

2. Ashwin 'Mankading' Buttler

3. Chartered Accountants Should Stick To Their Business

     

         Modi The Narcissist Should Be Pulled Up By The Election Commission: 

                   ASAT Announcement & The Election Code of Conduct 

If Narendra Modi is pulled up by the Election Commission for having violated the Election Code Of Conduct by going on national radio and television to announce India's newly acquired capability to take down enemy satellites, then he will have his acolyte and captive advocate Arun Jaitley spring up to his defence and bring up a jurisdictional issue that the Code Of Conduct is not applicable in outer space and thus our eminent PM will again go scot free. Modi is a complete narcissist and cannot avoid the media or the opportunity to have his photo put out since it has come out that Railway tickets and Air India boarding cards were being issued with his photos. This offence has reached the Election Commission and though the boarding cards have been scuffed clean of the PM's pics, we are not yet aware of the action taken by the Railways. It is said that the biopic on Narendra Modi scheduled for a release on 12 April 2019 has been preponed for 5 April 2019 considering the first date of polling for the Lok Sabha polls is 11 April 2019. All this seems to be orchestrated even down to the shooting down of a satellite in outer space just to give Narendra Modi an opportunity to cock a snook at the system and show his thumb to his critics. The capability that India has acquired to shoot down a satellite in outer space is a great achievement by our defence and space scientists and is more a device to be used when we are at war and could have been announced by a departmental press release and there was no need for the PM to appear on national radio and television. Being the head of government the least that Narendra Modi can do is to follow the Election Code Of Conduct and set an example for others to emulate him. 

In the context of the ASAT - the anti-satellite technology that India has achieved with its own resources, it is disappointing to hear Arun Jaitley once again trying to collect brownie points for this BJP government by claiming that the earlier government had pushed back the development of this technology and it was their government that revived the development. While this is commendable, one needs to ask whether there is any particular development or initiative that this BJP government has taken up on their own and which it can claim credit for except for the misguided Demonetisation and implementation of GST programs and the shabby execution of both. For almost each and every program the BJP has been critical of previous governments without coming out with any novel programs of their own while it has with alacrity adopted some of the flagship programs of the past like MNREGA, Aadhaar etc. There has also not been a single program that has been put through by the present government without confusion and causing pain and trauma to citizens. As for the ASAT while it is a signal achievement for our scientific community, one needs to de-emphasise its necessity even now as also a decade ago since there are more pressing and urgent priorities for the country. Even now its announcement by the PM with its associated drama on World Theater Day was essentially to divert the attention of the people from more pressing issues affecting their lives. It was thus an abject attempt to sway the people’s votes. Also it was a clear violation of the Election Code of Conduct since it is not the process or mechanism by which the announcement was made that is in question but the spirit of trying to influence the voters. For this infarction Narendra Modi deserves to be banned from the present Lok Sabha elections. 

                                              Ashwin 'Mankading' Buttler

Ashwin was well within his rights to run out or 'Mankad' Buttler. Cricket particularly the IPL has become a very competitive game with high stakes and everyone has to play by the rules. There is nothing like the spirit of the game anymore and at worst could apply for the 5-day Tests and definitely not for the T-20 format. As for Buttler he seems to be making a habit of getting Mankaded and the present incident is a timely lesson for him. Postscript: One wonders if any batsman from India, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Bangladesh or Pakistan had been run out in the same manner whether there would be such outrage? The MCC after first supporting Ashwin in the incident is understood to be reconsidering its position. There is another thing that we need to address regarding such runouts and that is to stop using the term - Mankaded. The term only recalls the name of the great Vinoo Mankad in a denigrating form and which should stop. Maybe we could call it - creased out - to distinguish it from runouts. 

                              Chartered Accountants Should Stick To Their Business 

Recently the Chartered Accountants Association Of India took up cudgels with economists after a group of some 100 economists pointed out that the integrity and  faithfulness of India's economic figures should be protected and not subjected to random interference by the incumbent government. This is a completely out-of-turn position of the Chartered Accountants Association who one thinks should stick to their own business and not poke their noses in matters that are relatively a little away from their domain of expertise. Accountants as per their role are required to deal with figures in real time of individuals and businesses in the economy. In some of their work they have to take the help of government published figures of economic indices but one thinks that they really do not understand and appreciate how some of these figures are collated and compiled. Therefore it is unfair for them to comment on the methodology of compiling GDP and other economic figures since these figures relate to a wider domain than what normal chartered accountants are used to and generally being longer term in nature require special expertise in the interpretation and acceptance of raw data while in the process of computation. One is not saying that chartered accountants cannot do this since as individuals many of them have risen beyond their domain and headed many multinational corporations. But as an Association they need to be careful while taking a stand beyond their spheres of competence. Postscript: The new CEA - Chief Economic Advisor has recently come out with a statement that GDP figures are difficult to fudge because there are too many touch points meaning the data has to come from multiple independent sources and it would be difficult to manage all of them to give the wrong figures or in the eyes of the government 'rosy' figures. He does not seem to have realised that in the present government it is the top-down approach that works and it is not the bottom-up that is based on data collation.  The 'chaiwallah' will decide on the figure and everyone will then have to bend over backwards to justify it. He also claims 2018-19 GDP would be in the region of 7.5% when everyone else including multilateral agencies are posting it below 7%. He sees growth in the economy which many of us have missed and it must be all 'jobless' growth. Talk of performing true to character or having rosy tinted honeymoons!

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Vox Populi Issue 274

                                                            VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 274                      Date: 25.03.2019

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

 

Contents:       

1. Campaign Strategies & The Win Numbers

2. Pakistan Should Be Banned From All International Sport

3. Jet Airways Should Not Be Given A Bailout

                                             Campaign Strategies & The Win Numbers 

In the context of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and the campaigns and focusing on the principal Opposition party, the Congress, which has more of a national presence than any of the other parties in the Opposition. So with Rahul Gandhi leading the Congress snapping at the heels of the Narendra Modi led BJP-NDA combine one can give them an A in doggedness and tenacity, in quality of issues raised it is a B and for creating a pervasive atmosphere of a contest it is a C. Rahul Gandhi has shed his earlier diffidence and seems to be more confident but he needs to focus on more content when he speaks rather than concentrate on sound bytes. The last statement about the PM 'being a joke' sounds very schoolboyish and downright immature. In old conventional naval warfare, while bombarding enemy ships the most effective positioning is to get broadside or parallel to the enemy ship. Then given the large distances involved in sea the positioning of the guns becomes important like its elevation. You let off a volley and see where the shells splash in the water. If it is short then the guns are raised so that you can have the shells go behind the target ship. This also tells you that you have been able to effectively get the target in the range of your guns. And then the gunners are allowed to do their math for gun elevation and you aim for a direct hit. If you get one then you are entitled to celebrate. The lesson in this is that within your competence if you are able to zone in your target then there is a greater possibility of a direct hit. By the same analogy, if you analyse the Congress campaign you will find their shells landing far short of the target and at most the Modi led BJP-NDA combine are getting themselves splashed with water and there is no damage at all to them. Thus the Congress has to elevate their guns to do more damage. However, in contrast the BJP has been hurting the Congress at times grievously to which the Congress have rarely any rejoinders and are caught out fumbling and making pithy responses. One can say that the Congress with a long innings in the seat of government are carrying a legacy which the BJP can plunder to target them. In a sense the BJP have almost outplayed the Congress and are not so much bothered about the Opposition in their race to capture the reins of government once again. The only debacle that one can see about the BJP is what is called 'unforced errors' in tennis. It is goofing upon your play with no pressure from the opponent. And the BJP has committed many  'unforced errors' but you have to give it to them that they have recovered. However, overall with the BJP in their effort to capture the public imagination like in the 'chowkidar' machination one gets the feeling that there is a dumbing down of the political discourse.  There is also a sense of alienation where people are beginning to feel that their attention is being diverted of more pressing issues like the economy, joblessness and the hurt that was caused by the gross irresponsibility of the measures of demonetisation and the GST implementation. So all in all if the BJP does not get a majority come 23 May they will have no one else to blame but themselves. But even then my tally for the BJP is still 245 and with the NDA allies ending tantalisingly close to the halfway mark. It is thus going to be a case of so near but yet so far. 

                     Pakistan Should Be Banned From All International Sport

Pakistan had taken objection to our cricket team wearing the combat CRPF caps in the recently concluded India - Australia ODI series. This is rather sad since we are at the receiving end of terror from Pakistan and then we get lectured by them on propriety. The Indian team by showing the gesture of solidarity with our armed forces did the right thing and there is nothing wrong with it. In fact it is Pakistan who should be banned from all forms of international sport since they are not able to provide a safe environment for foreign players and teams in their country. Talking about cricket there was no need for Pakistan to be allowed to have their host matches in the UAE. If they are not able to host the matches in their country or give the confidence to international teams to play in their country then they should have been banned from the sport. Giving them the crutch of playing in another country has given Pakistan the misplaced zeal to lecture others on the whys and wherefores in the administration of the sport. The other thing is that if the de-facto host location for Pakistan is the UAE then it gives them no motivation to correct the situation in their own country and it will be only the international sport associations which will be responsible for allowing this situation to persist. So the best thing is to ban Pakistan from all international sport until they are able to correct the security situation in their own country. 
                                 Jet Airways Should Not Be Given A Bailout

In the Jet Airways crisis SBI seems to be getting over anxious in trying to keep the airline afloat. It has been making noises lately that the airline cannot be allowed to sink because the creditors have too much at stake. Though the process suggested by SBI can be termed to be technically correct since they have said that the objective is to save the airline after jettisoning Naresh Goyal. This after Goyal and Etihad being unable to bring in from their side the funding amounting to Rs. 750 crores as their share in the bailout exercise. In fact Etihad has made a comment that they want nothing to do with Jet Airways. The latest figures being put out on the funds needed by Jet Airways to come out of the crisis is Rs. 10,000 crores. This figure is in the same region of what Kingfisher Airlines was in debt for. Kingfisher Airlines even at the time it was folding up had gone to the government and had pleaded for a bailout. But then it was not given any support claiming that they needed to fend for themselves after having got themselves into a crisis. Therefore it is not understood why Jet Airways should be given a crutch bythe government and its majority owned financial institutions. On the operational side only some 40 odd planes of Jet Airways are still flying out of 119 that they own. Therefore if Jet Airways folds up, it is not going to make a great difference in the airline industry within the country since the other airlines can more than make up for the slack once the Boeing Max issues are resolved. Therefore if Jet Airways are not able to continue operations we should let them go into bankruptcy and have other airlines which are being run better to take over the business and expand in the spirit of the more efficient being given more opportunities in a truly competitive environment. The other thing is that SBI is run with public funds and cannot be allowed to spend good money on clearly bad areas. Not only that even if Jet Airways are bailed out by government owned financial institutions what guarantee do you have that in a few years down the road it will not meet the same fate as AirIndia which is a perennial sink hole for funds. That is why it is best that Jet Airways die, a consequence that they have brought upon by themselves. 

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