MIP - February 2023

Tamil Nadu: A sick man called Dayanidhi Maran

When thoughts of Bihar comes two very contrasting personalities come to my mind invariably. This is my personal opinion. There will, for sure, different views on the combination of different personalities, according to each one’s knowledge of people they have read or have come across. One of these two persons is a joker of a politician called Lalu Prasad Yadav, a former Chief Minister of Bihar, the notorious Chaara Ghotala criminal and the one who sold Indian Railway jobs for land from the beneficiaries of job with Indian Railways when he was the Railway Minister. Besides the above, he is credited with other misdeeds too.

The other person is a gentleman of rare qualities, Prof (Dr) Pashupathi Nath Singh, a former Principal of Karnataka Regional Engineering College (KREC) Surathkal, Karnataka, so also the first director of National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal. He recently passed away with impeccably clean record of service, commitment and integrity.

And comes this sick man called Dayanidhi Maran, a DMK politician. He is being trolled in media for the most despicably disparagingly insulting remark for any politician to have made anywhere in India. He is reported to have remarked “those who study only Hindi in Bihar, build houses and clean toilets in Tamil Nadu”, while adding “people of Tamil Nadu who studied English, were earning fat salaries in IT firms”. This joker not only insulted Biharis and Bihar, he has insulted all Hindi speaking people of India. In fact he has insulted all Indians who cannot speak English. The above statement has completely exposed the rotten mindset of the man. With another joker Udayanidhi Stalin having compared the ‘Sanatana Dharma to dengue and covid’, it appears there is problem in this Tamil Nadu political family’s mindset. It has made all right thinking Tamils to feel ashamed. Sadly not many Tamils were openly outraged by the obnoxious utterance of this joker. Here it is pertinent to mention that there were hundreds of Tamil scholars who studied and worked under the direct supervision of Prof Dr. P.N. Singh, a Bihari himself, all of whom have greatest regard to this giant of a human being.

The question is how anybody in his right senses, could make such a horribly uncivil statement. That this statement was made some 9 months ago in March 2023, does not reduce the gravity of the extremely poor and tasteless remark of this up-start called Dayanidhi Maran.

However what is sad is, media has not reacted with adequate seriousness about the low quality thinking of people like Dayanidhi Maran. Another sad development is the silence of members of Mahaghatbandhan – the I.N.D.I Alliance. Except Tejaswi Yadav, a deputy CM of Bihar, none have reacted publicly. Even his Chief Minister, Nithish Kumar, who want to be the convener of I.N.D.I Alliance, has not publicly reacted, allowing the political opportunism to overtake the sense of self respect of Biharis. In the name of political expediency one cannot mortgage one’s sense of honor!

Fortunately, Chandrika Yadav, a Bihar Congress leader has served a legal notice to this joker from Tamil Nadu, who also happen to be a DMK MP from Chennai Central Loksabha constituency. That is one saving grace for Biharis, while jail bird and the most infamous Bihari Lalu Prasad Yadav has maintained silence. For all it is worth, this sick man Maran should be hauled up before the Courts and force him to publicly apologize for the totally unacceptable barb.

This writer is neither a Bihari nor from Hindi heartland. Being from Mangalooru, Hindi was never opposed, besides as a school student was exposed early to learn Hindi. Let’s face it, whether anybody accepts Hindi as National Language or not, it has to be accepted that Hindi is the spoken language of most Indians, take it or leave it.

World- Israeli Reaction to Hamas attack

War between IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and Hamas militants/terrorists is ongoing. Despite universal pressure, Israel has been relentless in its pursuit of “teaching Hamas a lesson”.

When the hell broke on 7th Dec, 2023 and a shocked Jewish State retaliated with all its might, most part of the non-Islamic world reacted positively to the strike by IDF. They justified that, it was the Hamas, who in the first place attacked Israel without warning and without any immediate causa proxima. Over a 1,000 were killed and hundreds were taken hostage. Israel was not expected to play it down. They are living in the midst of a hostile environment and they have managed to live there on their own terms for all these over 70 decades.

Of course, there are arguments and counter arguments on what precipitated the conflict and how it can be solved. It’s only a matter of give and take, and the issue can be resolved for a permanent solution. But all stake holders and their supporters must come on board with open mind.

While we are about it, the issue nearer home, the Godhra carnage of Karsevaks travelling from Ayodhya and the resultant reaction in Gujarat has to be seen also in the same light.

If Hamas had not attacked Israele unarmed civilians and the eruption by IDF wouldn’t have been there. Similarly, if the burning alive of some 60 Karsevaks by Islamic militants was not there, the subsequent trigger of retaliation by the affected community wouldn’t have been there in Gujarath either. Of course, the principle that ‘every action would have an equal and opposite reaction’ is possible only in laboratory conditions. In all probabilities reaction can always be more than equal or disproportionate to the action. That’s a reality, which the civilized world has to accept.

Odisha: MP Dhiraj Sahu & Black Money

When on the night of 8th Nov 2016, demonetization was announced, by Prime Minister Modi it took time to percolate down to the ground level to understand the enormity of the move. He had declared that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes would cease to be a legal tender from the midnight that day. While it was true that large informal sector, which depended overwhelmingly on cash for transactions was rendered immobile in the short run due to shortage of money supply, but then hoarders of cash, the corrupt and tax evading crowd of societal enemies, were also very apprehensive and had lost sleep on how to save themselves and their hoarded cash. In the event it has indeed hurt them.

Be that as it may, comes the story of Dhiraj Sahu, a Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand, who also owns a distillery company in Odisha. He was in the news some weeks ago for the Income Tax raid on the family owned distillery. Reportedly the raid yielded unaccounted cash booty of over Rs 350 crores, supposedly the highest ever haul in a single action by any probe agency in the country.

This MP from Jharkhand had reportedly tweeted sometime in 2022 about rampant corruption prevailing in the country. His post had read “Even after demonetization, my heart is saddened to see so much black money and corruption in the country. I don’t understand from where people are accumulating so much black money. If anyone can root out corruption from this country, it’s only the Congress”. Yes, he happens to be a Congress Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament.

Now this is clearly ironic that in 2022, his heart was bleeding about the corruption and black money in the country. But a year later in Dec 2023, Sahu himself was caught with over Rs 350 crores unaccounted cash in his possession. What could be greater tragi-comedy than this spectacle of speaking about rooting out black money and getting caught brazenly with an incredibly humongous treasure of black money concealed in some close to 180 bags! Reportedly some 60 staff were used with several counting machines from the State Bank of India branch in Balangir.

According to media report datelined Bhubaneswar the counting had gone past Rs 353 crores, even counting machines broke down due to heavy work load. Raids were launched on 6th December by the I.T department men on charges of tax evasion and the ‘off-the-book’ transactions. The department believes that the entire cache of cash was from cash sales of country-liquor by the Odisha based “Boudh Distillary Pvt Ltd” owned by the family of Dhiraj Sahu. As luck would have it, the dubious distinction of being caught with the ‘highest ever’ cache of the unaccounted black money shall belong to this Jharkhand M.P. and his business associates. And the joke is his party, the Indian National Congress, shall root out the scourge of black money in the country!

While we are about it, it is pertinent to mention that demonetization did revolutionize the cash transactions in the country with the introduction of UPI, the Unified Payment Interface, a globally hailed digital move.

New Delhi: Tejashvi Yadav & Karti Chidambaram

There were two reports on the same page in the print media some weeks ago. One relating to the RJD leader & Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, Tejashvi Yadav and the other on Congress Member of Parliament Karti Chidambaram. Both reports were emanating from Enforcement Directorate. On Tejashvi Yadav the report titled was “Land-for-jobs case: ED issues fresh summons to Tejashvi. On Karti Chidambaram, it was “Cong MP Karti Chidambaram appears before the ED in money laundering case”.

All political news savvy Indians are in the know that the above two “gentlemen” are the leading lights of I.N.D.I. Alliance. Both of them are second generation politicians. Tejashvi Yadav is the son of Lalu Prasad Yadav, a former Chief Minister of Bihar and a former Union Railway Minister under UPA government led by Indian National Congress. Karti Chidambaram is the son of Palaniappan or P. Chidambaram, a former Union Minister in multiple governments with different portfolios.

While Lalu Prasad Yadav is an MA LLB his son Tejashvi Yadav is only 10th class pass informs Wikipedia, whereas P. Chidambaram is a BSc. LLB from Madras University and an MBA from Harward, and his son is equally well qualified with BBA from Texas and LLB from Cambridge.

The idea of presenting the educational qualification was to think about the banality or otherwise of their scheming minds. Although Lalu Prasad Yadav is MA LLB the environment of his upbringing didn’t help plan his scheme of personal aggrandizement beyond Chaara Ghotala or the railway job scams and the likes. But the savvy Chidambaram clearly appeared far ahead in scheming things to make lucre and then to cover their tracks to leave tell-tale signs as less as possible.

Now going back to the report in the media about being questioned by the ED, it can be safely said that these developments can put paid in their efforts to mobilize support for I.N.D.I. Alliance and in the final analysis, these negative reports can only add to the negative public perception of Mahaghatbandhan to take on NDA led by BJP led by PM Modi.

World: Singapore

Republic of Singapore is an island country and city state. It has only 735 Sq. kms of land area, but with per capita income of US $ 133,107, which is among the top five countries in the world.

It was in the news the other day, titled “Singapore’s ‘clean image’ hit, minister charged with graft”.

According to a print media report, the Transport Minister of Singapore, S. Ishwaran had resigned, after he was accused of accepting free tickets for a musical concert ‘Hamilton’, air travel and soccer games while in Britain.

Come to think of it, what is the money value of tickets to a musical concert, an air travel within the United Kingdom or enjoying a game of football in the UK!

But Singapore is Singapore, supposedly one of the least corrupt country in the world. It has a clean image, in terms of financial dealings and generally the laws of the country are strictly enforced to maintain the image of a sleaze-free country.

Compare India to Singapore, and how many politicians are there in positions of power and how they have unaccounted wealth and no question asked! Surely all this wealth is not from their regular source of income! Every time, while contesting elections, they are supposed to declare their net-worth. But no question asked about the source - how it is earned. When standing for repeat election they will declare their net-worth many times more than the previous declared amount. But no declaration is required as to the source of income that led to the increased net-worth.

If only the toughness of Singaporean anti-corruption laws are enforced in India, clearly a vast majority of these political office-holders would be in jail.

Singapore has long boasted of its clean image, when it comes to financial wrong doings. The country has consistently been lauded for its absence of graft in public life.

Reportedly, it was the fifth least corrupt country as per Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index for 2022 and supposedly the only Asian country to be in the top 10.

According to the report, the total value of benefits enjoyed by the minister, S. Ishwaran, was to the tune of US $ 160,000, during the six years period from 2015 to 2021, which comes to less than $ 27,000 per year. By any stretch of imagination, this is peanuts, compared to the huge misdeeds of many of our political leaders, and nothing happens to them. Our politicians truly speaking, revel in exhibiting their money power earned through corrupt means and they act as patrons doing favors to people in general and officials in particular.

Our leaders, in fact most Chief Ministers of Indian states, have spoken for many years in the past to upgrade some of the cities of their respective states to that of Singapore. Will it ever happen within letter and spirit!

Is Achhey Din coming?

Some 10 years ago, when ‘Abki Baar Modi Sarkar’ was launched post 2014 Lok Sabha Election, Achhe Din was one of the promise.

We all know, all politicians and political parties promise moon before elections. Once the election is over, these promise gets pushed into the backyard only to remember next time round when the election is due. It’s also true that these promises generally take longer time to be addressed for varieties of socio economic reasons.

Like Gareebhi Hatao slogan of Indira Gandhi era has remained on paper, even promise of Achhey Din would have remained in the public memory. But there appears to be some good news coming from NITI AAYOG.

A report datelined New Delhi was “Niti Paper: In 9 years 24.8 crore Indians out of Multidimensional poverty”. So even so late in the day, Gareebhi Hatao is happening due to the efforts of NDA II government in New Delhi.

According to the paper prepared and released by Ramesh Chand, a member of the NITI Aayog and Yogesh Suri, a senior advisor of NITI Aayog, an estimated 24.8 crore Indians may have moved out of multidimensional poverty in the past 9 years, 2014/2023 period.

Multidimensional poverty has 12 parameters, like nutrition, child & adolescent mortality, education, sanitation, cooking fuel, bank a/c, health, housing, maternal health etc. This is projected to have reduced to 11.3% in 2022-23, from 15% in 2019-21 and 29.2% in 2013-14. Report informs that UP and Bihar have recorded biggest improvements.

The authors of the NITI Aayog report have projected a single-digit level achievement by the end of next financial year. They have stated that India is much ahead of the target of reducing poverty in all its dimension by half by 2030. “All 12 indicators of Multidimensional Poverty Index have shown remarkable improvements during this period”, the paper had stated, while adding “the rate of decline in multidimensional poverty has accelerated during the period 2013-14 to 2022-23. This was made possible due to many initiatives and schemes of the central government targeted at improving specific deprivation aspects.”

Reportedly, based on the overall numbers collected by the National Family Health Survey, U.P managed to get 5.9 crore people out of poverty, followed by 3.8 crore in Bihar, 2.3 crore in M.P, 1.7 crore in West Bengal, 1.6 crore in Maharashtra and 1.0 crore in Odisha among others. Hope the overall improvement continues to happen in the coming days.

New Delhi: Global Investment Scenario

A report datelined New Delhi, informed “India, 5th most wanted place for investment globally: PwC”.

Price Water house and Coopers & Lybrand, (PwC), is an international consulting firm specialized in financial reporting. They had conducted a survey for the global decision makers to find out the options for investment from global financial institutions and global investors in both large and emerging large economies.

They released their survey report on the eve of World Economic Forum meeting in Davos early 2024.

According to the report. India was seen as the 5th preferred destination to invest after the U.S, China, Germany and the UK, making up 4 places from the position it held last year.

Reportedly India was 4th most favored destination in 2020, but slipped to 5th position in 2021 and to 8th spot in 2022, slipping further to 9th position in 2023.

“India appears to have countered the impact of global economic slowdown through government capex spending, domestic demand and other economic shock absorbers. Strong fundamentals, healthier Balance Sheets of Banks and Corporates, fiscal consolidation, manageable external balance and substantial foreign exchange reserves contribute to a positive outlook”, the survey reported to have stated.

This is a very positive development in the year of election 2024. Clearly India looks forward to leap ahead in the comity of nations to emerge as a dominant player in the international market, which should auger well for both employment generation and GDP leading to improved Per Capita Income of its citizens. Hope it happens.

TEMPLE FOR LORD RAMA

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Afterall, the long awaited temple to Maryaadaa Purushottam Rama has come about. The '500 hundred years old' wait is over, so informs the public space.

The formal consecration of the temple in Ayodhya has indeed ended the alien influence that has disturbed the national consciousness from time immemorial. Whether two more such developments, as articulated in public space will follow or not, is not important, per se. But the belated development at Ayodhya has indeed been a crucial precedent, unprecedented hitherto.

It's a statement, we Indians, Hindus in particular, can be comfortable to align with.

Yes, we could wipe a historical humiliation, where a temple was destroyed to make an alien place of worship. That was a statement then, for an alien force. They did it to humiliate us.

At long last we could reverse it, at our own terms within the precincts of law and order. Indeed temple at Ayodhya has proved reversal is possible.