Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar launched #SelfieWithSapling campaign on the eve of World Environment Day. He urged people to plant a sapling and click a selfie with it.
Prakash Javadekar said that ‘jan bhagidari’ (people’s participation) is integral to tackling environmental issues. He said, “June 5 is celebrated as World Environment Day. I appeal to the people to plant a sapling, click a picture with it and post it on social media using ‘#SelfieWithSapling’. We need such initiatives as we are creating a carbon sink.” Prakash Javadekar said that the Modi government believes that environment is not just a government programme but a people’s programme.
In January this year, the Centre launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) to reduce air pollution by 2024. According to the Environment Ministry, the committee formed under the NCAP has met and an action plan has been drawn up for 84 of 102 polluted cities.
It is notable that air pollution in India is a serious issue, ranking higher than smoking, high blood pressure, child and maternal malnutrition, and risk factors for diabetes. 13 out of the world’s most polluted 20 cities are in India. Air pollution contributes to the premature deaths of 20 lakh Indians every year.
Storm water drains are crucial for flushing flood water out of the city during the rains. Mumbai has a vast network of storm water drains. While resorting to recycling and usage of waste to its extinction, the problem of the already accumulated landfill and dumps must be resolved. Experts have suggested gasification as an effective way of converting waste into energy. Such possibilities should be explored to our advantage. Gasification is a process that converts organic- or fossil fuel-based carbonaceous materials into carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The goal, within the next 15 days, should be to attain total control on plastic disposal, create a much cleaner environment and release the capacity of clogged sewerage and storm water drains before the onset of monsoon season. It is in our larger interest to participate pro-actively in this movement and watch its progress if government would reveal the relative progress in their monthly reports and monitor progress in the best way possible. However, the muck must stop here once for all.
-C.K. Ramani
Another feather in Sitharaman’s cap
Nirmala Sitharaman is the boldest Defence Minister our country has ever had and we saw her expertise when Pakistan was silenced in couple of days after the Balakot attack. This probably is the reason why she has been rewarded with the post of Finance Minister by the Prime Minister as she comes with a background of economics and capable to steer our country out of the woods at times of economic slowdown. From being the Defence Minister to becoming the Finance Minister is a big leap for Sitharaman and truly another feather in her illustrious cap.
Simplicity, honesty and hard work are qualities on which Nirmala Sitharaman thrives and we should be proud of her achievements. This is a rare honour for somebody to hold the post of Defence and Finance in successive government formations and truly noteworthy for a woman to get that distinction. Wishing Nirmala Sitharaman the very best in her new assignment which I am sure she would carry out with distinction.
-S.N. Kabra
Hold simultaneous polls for next Lok Sabha election
After landslide BJP victory in recently held 2019-elections to Lok Sabha, there is large-scale defection of MLAs of other parties to BJP. Apart from this, there is also fear of fall of state-governments with thin majority in state-assemblies for which elections were held in November 2018 except in Telangana.
Prime Minister and many others have always favoured revival of simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and all state-assemblies like was the system till the year 1967. The central government should take bold step of dissolving all state-assemblies except those having recently held simultaneous elections in the year 2019, like was done in the year 1977 after landslide victory of newly formed Janata Party with simultaneous elections held in November 2019 with due elections to state-assemblies of Haryana and Maharashtra. It may be announced that next simultaneous polls for Lok Sabha and all state-assemblies would be in February 2024 with February being most favoured month for holding elections.
-Subhash Chandra Agrawal
Merge public-sector General-Insurance companies
It refers to public-sector National Insurance Company showing a heavy loss of rupees 2171 crores in fiscal-year 2017-18 while Oriental Insurance Company and United Insurance Company becoming profitable after having suffered heavy losses in earlier fiscal-year 2016-17. Only New India assurance Company showed adequate profit in both the fiscal years at rupees 1008 crores and 2201 crores respectively.
Talks are going on for a long time to merge three out of four public-sector companies engaged in business of General Insurance. Central government instead should merge all public-sector companies for General Insurance into one unified company to reduce unnecessary overheads. If one single public-sector Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) provides life-insurance cover under so many plans effectively, then one General Insurance Corporation of India can also be formed by merging all public-sector Insurance-companies engaged in General Insurance.
Such unified company will be able to compete more effectively with private-sector companies engaged in General Insurance in the manner that no private Insurance-company is presently able to compete with public-sector Life Insurance Corporation of India.
-Madhu Agrawal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
In the next three years, there will be heavy investment in India. Consumption by Indians will also increase. Thus, on account of favourable economic conditions, GDP of the country will grow at the rate of 7.5 per cent. The World Bank has forecast in its report.
According to the World Bank, GDP of China will reduce during this period. With this India will continue to retain the position of being the fastest growing emerging economy. By 2021, growth rate of India is projected to be 1.5 per cent more than China’s 6 per cent.
The World Bank in its ‘Global Economic Prospects’ said that India is estimated to have grown 7.2 per cent in fiscal year 2018-19. GDP growth rate of India is projected at 7.5 per cent in fiscal year 2019-20 and this will continue through the next two fiscal years.
According to the World Bank, China’s growth rate in 2019 is projected to be dropped to 6.2 per cent and then subsequently to 6.1 per cent in 2020 and 6 per cent in 2021. On the other hand, Pakistan’s growth is expected to slow further to 2.7 per cent in fiscal year 2019-20, as domestic demand remains depressed.
The World Bank said that India’s urban consumption was supported by a pickup in credit growth. Its rural consumption was hindered by soft agricultural prices. On the production side, robust growth was broad-based, with a slight moderation in services and agricultural activity accompanied by an acceleration in the industrial sector. Services activity in the country softened mainly due to slowing trade, hotel, transport, and communication activity. The industrial sector benefited from strong manufacturing and construction with solid demand for capital goods.
Women of Delhi are concerned about their security first as it is reportedly one of the most unsafe city for them. Therefore, social media, particularly Twitter is abuzz with discussions of the security of women and the feasibility of the scheme like free rides for women in public transport, including buses and Delhi Metro. The city was branded as the nation’s rape capital in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya gang rape in December 2012. According to Delhi Police’s recent report, despite the nominal decrease, the reported number of rape cases remains high in Delhi. It is really a matter of concern for all.
Priyanka Chaturvedi, deputy leader of Shiv Sena raised this issue just after the announcement by the Delhi government. She began a discussion over this.Chaturvedi tweeted, “Hate to remind this, but Nirbhaya was gang raped in a bus in Delhi. At that time, the country didn’t protest over free rides for the women but for making the capital safe for its women to be able to take a bus or metro at any time of the day. Get your priorities right!” After this tweet, over 5,000 people expressed their unhappiness with Kejriwal’s free rides for women. They asked the Chief Minister of Delhi to ensure the safety of women first.
Hate to remind this, but Nirbhaya was gang raped in a bus in Delhi. At that time the country didn’t protest over free rides for the women but for making the capital safe for its women to be able to take a bus or metro at any time of the day. Get your priorities right!
Monika Pant, Delhi BJP Vice President said,“With an eye on Delhi Assembly elections next year, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has announced the free ride scheme for women. Without proper planning, no scheme will be successful. Therefore, this scheme will fail completely as there is no provision of the security for women by the Delhi government. In last assembly elections, the Aam Aadmi Party promised in its manifesto to install CCTV cameras in the state to ensure the security of women. But a single camera is not installed so far. Kejriwal is befooling people. In the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, voters of Delhi rejected Aam Aadmi Party. That is why CM Kejriwal has announced this scheme.”
As per sources, over 20 lakh women travel every day in Delhi. They spend over Rs 4 crore on public transport daily. 7.5 lakh women travel by metro, while 12.6 lakh others travel by DTC bus. They spend Rs 3 crore on the metro fare and Rs 1.3 crore on bus fare.
On the other hand, a Aam Aadmi party worker said, ”There are some problems in implementing free rides for women in Delhi Metro but we will materialise it in DTC. We are 50 per cent shareholders in Metro. We are exploring the ways to bring Metro under this scheme. As far as, the security of women is concerned, the Delhi government is installing CCTV cameras on various locations in Delhi. This work got delayed because Delhi is not a full-fledged state and we have to take approval on different stages.”
It is worth mentioning that Kejriwal announced on Monday that Delhi women will soon be able to travel free of cost on all public transport. This is yet to get a green signal from the centre. This scheme will cost Rs 700-800 crore yearly. However, Kejriwal mentioned that those do not want the benefits of this offer, they would be free to buy the tickets. He said, “I have given one-week time to officials to make a detailed proposal for both DTC and Metro, on how and when can this be implemented. We are making an effort to start this within 2-3 months.” Aam Aadmi Party came to power in 2015 by winning 67 seats of 70 assembly constituencies.
Social Worker Sanjeev Sane said, “Free ride for women in Delhi is an election Jumla by CM Arvind Kejriwal ahead of the state assembly elections. How can he implement it in private buses? On the security of women, they may say that police are not under them. So, they are not responsible for it.”
According to political experts, the race for Delhi assembly election has begun. Kejriwal made the first move announcing free rides for women. In the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, the Narendra Modi government was voted back to power with a bigger majority. Experts have credited Modi government’s schemes like Ujjwala Yojana for free LPG connection and household toilet scheme under the Swachh Bharat Mission. These two schemes combined with Jan Dhan Yojana are said to have created a silent vote bank for Narendra Modi among women. A study indicates that the BJP’s popularity among women voters has increased by seven percentage points in 2019 Lok Sabha.
There are about 64.42 lakh women out of 1.41 crore voters in Delhi. In the general elections, 60.15 per cent women voters casted their vote compared to 60.82 per cent men voters. Increasing participation of women voters seems to have set off a competition among the political parties for their support. After the BJP, the Aam Aadmi Party is looking to woo the women voters.
Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party slammed the freebies given by the AAP. The BJP said that the scheme had been announced to dupe the voters. Manoj Tiwari, President of BJP Delhi unit said, “Aam Aadmi Party is in panic after losing the Lok Sabha elections.”
Keeping assembly elections in mind, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal announced free rides in the Metro and in buses for women who wish to avail of the facility. This decision is likely to cost the government approximately Rs 1,600 crore this year. The term of the Delhi government ends in February. The AAP, which swept the assembly elections in 2015, fared very poorly in the national capital in the Lok Sabha elections. Of the seven seats in Delhi, the party failed to secure a single seat and came third in five of the constituencies. The government aims to launch the free-ride initiative in the next two or three months and has invited suggestions from the public about the implementation of the scheme.
“The safety of women is the most important thing for the AAP government.” Keeping this in mind, the government has decided that all Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and cluster buses and the Delhi Metro will be free for women so that the maximum number of women can use public transport. This is said to be the safest for women. They are not able to use these services also because of the increase in Metro fares, believes Kejriwal. The Delhi government is ready to bear the cost of this. The cost for the remaining six months will be Rs 700-800 crore. The government is working on a voluntary model for the scheme, where travellers can opt out of the subsidy. Officials in the Delhi government have been given a week to draft the proposal. Well, the proposal looks meaty, and earlier too Kejriwal government succeeded in giving free water and subsidy on electricity. They have given best of education and medical services to Delhi voters. A new political party with a lot of odds and turbulences has won people’s heart but their opposition has managed to defame them to the core.
Well! Let me return to the main topic. In India, if you want to know what women want, honestly, not a free ride in metro but safety while travelling in the metro! Women, just like any other individual, deserve to have their opinions respected, even if you don’t agree with them. What do women dream of? They dream of exploring their talent and having a great career. They want to make a difference in the world. For all this, they have to leave their cocoons and safe shelters. They want the freedom of living life on their own terms — that is an uncompromising declaration of selfhood. Their biggest worries are related to work and careers and how to balance their personal and professional lives. For women in India (and I guess in a lot of other countries), travelling is fraught with dangers. Whether you are travelling from your home to the grocery store or backpacking across the country; you have to worry about your safety 24×7. More importantly, employers providing cab services and cab aggregators should also equip their fleets with appropriate telematics devices to ensure the safety of women employees.
Following the Nirbhaya case of 2012 and the public outrage that it provoked, public safety for women has been increasingly deemed a political issue worthy of attention and concern, particularly in India’s cities. The government’s response has been to promote precautionary policies for women that, while maybe well-meaning, tend to reinforce the prevalent social inclination to put the onus of their safety on women themselves, rather than addressing the deep-seated issues that cause them to feel unsafe, to begin with. These include the provision of buses exclusively for women and so-called ‘panic buttons’. Even as the male-dominated nature of India’s public sphere is being recognised, attempts to change it have been limited. Taking constructs of ‘positive and negative liberty’, this paper argues that public policy in Indian cities, with respect to gender, tends to focus on negative liberty; a shift to positive liberty is essential. Cities have been envisioned as spaces of liberation, of collaboration and ideas. For many women, cities are rather spaces of fear, which they access while having to constantly look over their shoulders. This view is not merely anecdotal. The United Nation’s ‘Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces’ programme, which started in 2010, recognised that cities all around the world were becoming unsafe for women. Delhi was one of the first five cities which the UN programmes set its eyes on, because of the grave issues faced by the city’s women. Rape cases in Delhi, for example, were the highest in the country. Delhi continues to be notoriously poor in ensuring women’s safety. In 2015, the highest crime rate in the Sexual Offences category (Incidence of Sexual Offences per 100,000 of Female Population) in the country was in Delhi. A number of policy solutions have been talked about and implemented since, including those that highlight the use of technology, such as ‘panic buttons’, GPS tracking, and CCTVs. As a response to the heightened media attention, the noisy public demand, and pressure from civil society organisations, attempts at forging more gender-sensitive policies and strategies have begun at different levels of government.
In Delhi, you are not even safe if you are with a guy. Just look at the case of Nirbhaya. Look at the recent case where a 51-year-old businessman was stabbed to death by a group of persons after he objected to some of them making lewd gestures at his 22-year-old daughter in west Delhi’s Moti Nagar. The crime happened around 2 am on Sunday while the businessman and his daughter were returning home from a hospital where she had visited for her migraine treatment. In such heinous situations, do you think woman really wants free ride?? In Delhi, there was a rape case where some men flung a woman’s three-month-old baby out of a rickshaw just to satisfy their desires. There was a case in Gurgaon, where some men kidnapped a woman to gang-rape her when she was returning from work in a taxi with her brother. So, now women aren’t even safe when they are with TWO men and not one. In Delhi, there was another case where a girl who while travelling with several men was kidnapped at gunpoint to be gang rapes by a bunch of men. So, now women are not even safe with many men as opposed to one man. A child was raped in Delhi where candles were inserted in her vagina by a neighbour. What a woman of Delhi needs is dignity and security. Hope Kejriwal understands it.
(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@www.afternoonvoice.com)
The Narendra Modi Government is firmly in the saddles. After getting a massive mandate he has taken some new talents in his Council of Ministers, retrained some old faces while sending some previous ministerial colleagues for ‘rest’.
He has given an important place to his government’s former foreign secretary S Jayashankar by appointing him a cabinet Minister for External Affairs. Modi was impressed by the performance of Jayashankar as Foreign Secretary during the Doklam face off in Arunachal Pradesh. Jayashankar belongs to Tamil Nadu. He has been an officer of Indian Foreign Service. He is considered an expert on China vis a vis China diplomatic ties with India. He takes over from Sushma Swaraj. Believe me, Modi will continue to consult his former minister Sushma Swaraj on External Affairs matter during his second stint as Prime Minister.
One should not take it that a leader like Amit Shah would stop taking interest in the Party affairs of the BJP after becoming Home Minister of the country. He will continue to guide the next BJP President while discharging his duty as Minister for Home Affairs. It was because of Shah’s poll strategy that the BJP was able to make deep inroads into West Bengal, Odisha and North Eastern States where Party won a large number of Lok Sabha seats.
On the other side, Suresh Prabhu, Jayant Sinha, J P Nadda, Mahesh Sharma, Maneka Gandhi, and some others were taken in the new government which may surprise some observers. But who should be taken and who should not be taken is the prerogative of the Prime Minister. Now it is being speculated that J P Nadda may become the next President of the BJP. He is a man from the organization and is considered close to both Modi and Shah. He also enjoys the confidence of the Sangh.
So far the exclusion of Suresh Prabhu from the Council of Ministers is concerned it is likely that he was dropped because of some pressure from Shiv Sena. The exact reason for Suresh Prabhu not taken in the government is known only to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. At the same time, it must be said that Prabhu is a talented and dedicated man totally committed to his work.
Similarly, it appears that an able leader like Jayant Sinha was dropped because of his father Yashwant Sinha who has been critical of Narendra Modi and his government. Not only that, Sinha left the Party to join a small group of leaders hostile to the BJP. But Modi never joined issue with Yashwant Sinha rather he never took any notice of Sinha’s criticism of his government.
Jayant Sinha was again elected to Lok Sabha from Hazaribagh constituency with a huge margin of 4.78 lakh votes. In the previous government, he began his ministerial inning by becoming Minister of State for Finance and later he was given charge of Ministry of Civil Aviation where he did an excellent job.
Maneka Gandhi who won from Sultanpur is being considered for the post of Speaker of Lok Sabha though it is early to say who will succeed Sumitra Mahajan in the 17th Lok Sabha as Speaker.
Ramesh Pokharyal Nishank, former chief minister of Uttarakhand has finally got a berth in the Union Cabinet. This is for the first time that an MP from Uttarakhand has been appointed a Cabinet Minister after the creation of the new state. By inducting Nishank Modi has tried to balance caste and ‘factional politics’ of the state. He has been very active as MP and recently Nishank has emerged a powerful Bhrahmin leader in the North.
A powerful tribal leader and former chief minister of Jharkhand Arjun Munda also took the oath of office as Cabinet Minister in the Modi Government. Two Ministers of State from Jharkhand who were part of the previous Modi Government Sudharshan Bhagat and Jayant Sinha were dropped. Induction of Munda is also being seen as a balancing act in Jharkhand vis a vis chief minister Raghubar Das.
Sudarshan Bhagat was Minister of State for Tribal Welfare in the previous government. He was later shifted to Ministry of Rural Development, Agriculture and Social Justice. Bhagat is a humble leader always accessible to the public. Elected from Khunti Arjun Munda is the lone Minister from Jharkhand.
It is a representative Council of Ministers at the Centre in which one can see faces from all over the county. Twenty of twenty-nine States of the Union of India are represented in the new Ministry. For the sake of it, one can say that there is no Minister from Tamil Nadu. But S Jayashankar and Nirmala Sitharaman are from Tamil Nadu. In a way, Tamil Nadu has also got representation in the government. Likewise, Kerala has also got its representative in the Union Council of Ministers though indirectly. V. Muraleedharan is from Kerala and is a Minister though he is a Rajya Sabha member from Maharashtra.
There was no doubt about continuation of Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani, Nirmala Sitharaman, Gen. (Retd) V K Singh and Santosh Gangwar in the new government.
Whereas Rajnath Singh ably and successfully handled Home Ministry in the previous government, Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur did a commendable job in taking a quantum jump in the country’s infrastructure particularly laying a network of National Highways and building Expressways in record time. Rajnath Singh has now been given the charge of Defence Ministry.
The man who was the architect of Mumbai-Pune highway built thousands of kilometers of the road during his five-year term besides broadening of highways. Gadkari is one man who does his work and sees to it that it is completed once he decides to do it. He is known for overcoming administrative and bureaucratic hurdles with tact and ease.
Induction of Nirmala Sitharaman in a new cabinet was certain. A former alumnus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Nirmalaji forcefully and effectively defended the government on the Congress’ charge on Rafale deal both in and outside Parliament. She is now Minister for Finance; a very important department. Smriti Irani’s hard work in Amethi where she defeated Rahul Gandhi was appreciated by the Central leadership of the Party.
Now that the Modi Government has assumed office for the second term, people will look at the government how it fulfills promises made. At the same time since it is the Modi Government, the country is assured of good work once again.
(The author is a Rajya Sabha Member)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of AFTERNOON VOICE and AFTERNOON VOICE does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.
After five months, BSP chief Mayawati has announced that her party has called of the alliance with Samajwadi party. She asked Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav to strengthen the party. Mayawati also stated that her party will contest the upcoming assembly polls in the state single-handedly. She added that the if situation improves in future then she will once again align with Samajwadi Party The BSP chief expressed her displeasure over her party not getting Yadav votes in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls. Meanwhile Akhilesh welcomed Mayawati’s decision to call of the alliance.
Mayawati said, “Looking at how the situation in the state is right now, it will be better for us to contest the upcoming elections on our own. It is not a permanent break. If the SP Chief succeeds in his political work then we will again work together. But if he doesn’t succeed then it will be good for us to work separately.”
After the announcement of Lok Sabha poll results allegations and counter-allegations have started. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has stated that Pradesh Congress Committee chief Sachin Pilot will have to take responsibility of the former’s on Vaibhav Gehlot’s defeat from Jodhpur. The Congress party which had won the assembly polls in Rajasthan in December has failed to win a single seat in the Lok Sabha election. Vaibhav Gehlot has lost the Jodhpur Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 2.7 lakh votes.
Ashok Gehlot had campaigned for his son ahead of Lok Sabha polls. Rivals alleged that Gehlot only focused on the Jodhpur Lok Sabha seat and didn’t campaign in other areas of the state which paved way for the party’s defeat in the state. Later Ashok Gehlot stated that everyone right from Pradesh Congress Committee chief and Chief Minister should take the responsibility of the party’s debacle in the state.
In an interview to ABP News, Ashok Gehlot stated,” Pilot saab said that we will win by a big margin in Jodhpur because we have six MLAs and our poll campaign was outstanding. Therefore, I feel that he should own responsibility for the defeat from that seat. A post-mortem must be conducted to know the reason for our defeat in Jodhpur.”
The Jodhpur seat was known as Gehlot’s bastion for several years and he has been elected five times from there. He had reportedly conducted 130 rallies and road shows 93 of them in Jodhpur alone.
World Environment Day is celebrated on June 5th all over the world. On this day, people across the world must raise global awareness about the importance of healthy and green environment in human lives. This day is celebrated to encourage people from all walks of life to not only actively participate in the celebration but to also become an active agent in developing environmental safety measures. It is a day to encourage people to make their nearby surroundings more safe and clean in order to enjoy a safer, cleaner and prosperous future.
-JubelD’Cruz
Practice what you preach Anil Ambani
One should practise what one preaches and Anil Ambani sadly is not qualified to advise the government on the worsening financial condition of NBFC’s in India. NBFC’s according to Ambani are in ICCU and they cannot be cured by paracetamol but needs a complete revival package from the government. It is actually the various group companies of the ADAG group that has put NBFC’s in a financial mess and group chairman Anil Ambani has no moral right to advise government on what they should do to revive the financial sector.
Ambani should concentrate on his companies and try to repay debts by selling assets than preach what he himself does not practice when it comes to good governance. Else, his companies would not have been in trouble and many are even knocking the doors of bankruptcy. Beg to differ with you Anil Ambani but you should take a leaf out of your elder brother on how to run a company successfully.
-S.N. Kabra
Jobless growth in India
Official data released by the National Statistical Office on May 31 about joblessness at 45-year high and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) falling to 5.8-per cent for first time in last 18 quarters are indeed a matter of worry for new Union Finance Minister, but can be effectively tackled by implementing recommendation of a government-appointed advisory-group to introduce Elephant-Bonds as a sort of permanent Voluntary Disclosure Scheme for those generating unaccounted incomes whereby it may be made compulsory to invest 50-percent amount of unaccounted income in these bonds to be utilised for infrastructure development simultaneously with compulsory deposit of all rupees-2000 notes in banks with no further issue of these notes which had to be issued only to meet urgent need on demonetisation of old currency in denominations of rupees 500 and 1000 on November 8, 2016. Discontinuing rupees-2000 notes will not affect common people because these are presently hoarded mainly in form of black money.
Such an idea will also permanently solve parallel economy of black economy, and provide a genuine platform to park unaccounted money any time with such money used for infrastructure development in turn creating more employments in public-sector.
-Madhu Agrawal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
The draft of the National Education Policy, which proposes a three-language formula, has evoked strong opposition from political parties in Tamil Nadu, which has witnessed anti-Hindi agitations in the past.
As the day (January 26, 1965) of switching over to Hindi as sole official language approached, the anti-Hindi movement gained momentum in Madras State with increased support from college students. On January 25, a full-scale riot broke out in the southern city of Madurai, sparked off by a minor altercation between agitating students and Congress party members. The riots spread all over Madras State continued unabated for the next two months and were marked by acts of violence, arson, looting, police firing, and lathi charges. The Congress Government of the Madras State, called in paramilitary forces to quell the agitation; their involvement resulted in the deaths of people. To calm the situation, Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri gave assurances that English would continue to be used as the official language as long as the non-Hindi speaking states wanted. The riots subsided after Shastri’s assurance, as did the student agitation.
The Hindi language is part and parcel of our educational system and it is a national language. People from South suffer because they lack in learning in the Hindi language. When a Tamilian goes out of Tamil Nadu, he should learn other languages and learning Hindi is more important. We, students, studied in schools during the 1960s still remember the days of learning Hindi. We used to write in English and read Hindi in front of the teacher. Once I was caught red handed and I felt sorry for not knowing the language. By the time we realised our mistakes, the Hindi agitation came in 1965 and the trains were burnt in the aftermath and that was the end of our learning period of a National language.
After finishing my college education when I was appointed as a Bank clerk in Ghaziabad UP, I had a bitter time dealing with my clients. Once I issued a draft to a customer in record time and the client thanked me for saying Thannewad and I asked what then he said Shukriya and again what I asked then he politely told “Thank You” and went off from that place. I took less time to issue a draft but I took more time to accept his thanks. I felt shy and from that day onwards started learning the language through hearing Hindi film songs. However, still to date I cannot read and write Hindi, thanks to the DMK government in Tamil Nadu.
Why can’t the Dravidian parties let the decision to be made by the people of TN? People who want to learn will learn, others won’t. Why are they imposing that TN people must learn only Tamil? These parties are just doing to create an unfavorable impression of the central government. Karunanidhi’s children and grandchildren all go to private and international schools and learn a multitude of languages.
What does ‘imposed’ mean? When there is a choice, it cannot be an imposition. There are students from many communities in the Schools of TN. They should have the option of learning Hindi. DMK cadre need not learn it, because their job description is to oppose Hindi but those Tamils seeking jobs in the North may want to learn Hindi. Dravidian parties should stop their nonsense on preaching against Hindi. Why did the DMK party agree to introduce Urdu in schools? Is it just for creating fear that Tamil becomes extinct from daily usages like Latin or Sanskrit? It is totally absurd!
The message is loud and clear. People in Tamil Nadu do not want to learn Hindi at any cost. The Educational Framework Policy in 2016 submitted the report for follow up means in implementation. It requires common sense, deep consultations, discussions, and then arrive at a decision. There are no takers for Hindi in Tamil Nadu but the Hindi films are highly successful from the days of Aradhana film. Why then this Kolaveri Di.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar launched #SelfieWithSapling campaign on the eve of World Environment Day. He urged people to plant a sapling and click a selfie with it.
The muck must stop here
Women of Delhi are concerned about their security first as it is reportedly one of the most unsafe city for them. Therefore, social media, particularly Twitter is abuzz with discussions of the security of women and the feasibility of the scheme like free rides for women in public transport, including buses and Delhi Metro. The city was branded as the nation’s rape capital in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya gang rape in December 2012. According to Delhi Police’s recent report, despite the nominal decrease, the reported number of rape cases remains high in Delhi. It is really a matter of concern for all.
After five months, BSP chief Mayawati has announced that her party has called of the alliance with Samajwadi party. She asked Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav to strengthen the party. Mayawati also stated that her party will contest the upcoming assembly polls in the state single-handedly. She added that the if situation improves in future then she will once again align with Samajwadi Party The BSP chief expressed her displeasure over her party not getting Yadav votes in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls. Meanwhile Akhilesh welcomed Mayawati’s decision to call of the alliance.
