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Budget for the rich to get richer and throw crumbs to the poor – Statement by NTUI

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Union Budget 2015 2016

by Gautam Mody, NTUI

New Delhi: The Union Budget of 2015-16, the BJP government’s first full budget, has a sense of triumphalism that it ‘can fly’ because it believes that , the ‘opportunity for this exist because we (the BJP government) have created it’ over the last nine-and-a-half months. This government is taking credit for conditions and circumstances that it has nothing to do with or did not, in the remotest way, have the ability or opportunity to contribute to. The BJP government rewards itself with the entire credit for the deceleration of the rate of inflation. It does not anywhere take note of the fact that inflationary pressure and therefore the country’s current account balance, has anything to do with the fact that international oil prices are at their lowest level in 5 years and at, in fact, half of what they were in May 2014. The BJP government would be wise to note that almost identical circumstances marked the euphoria at the start of the second UPA government. Furthermore, although inflation indices may show a decline, the measure of food price inflation is yet to show any significant decline.

The second reason that appears to tell the BJP government that its’ time to ‘fly’ has come is that, based on revised government statistics, it has given itself the title of the ‘fastest growing largest economy’ in the world. The government’s Economic Survey 2014-15 (ES), released on 27 February 2015, indicated that the economy will grow in 2015-16 by anywhere between 8.1 to 8.5 percent from a growth of 5.9 percent in the current year (2014-15).

A substantial part of the Budget Statement is interspersed with the promise that ‘every rupee of public expenditure…will contribute to the betterment of people’s lives through job creation, poverty elimination and economic growth’. Hence the test we must apply to this budget is whether the growth inspired by this budget will indeed contribute to job creation and poverty elimination. Equally, we are concerned about whether this rate of growth will introduce stability in the economy and what its distributional consequences will be for the working class.

Reducing Poverty by Reducing Budgetary Provision on Social Protection

The government’s promise of ‘poverty elimination’ comes with an across-the-board reduction in government expenditure on social protection and social security. The funds allocated for the MGNREGA are frozen at Rs. 34,000 crores and have for the first time come to below 2 percent of government expenditure. Expenditure on health, education, women and child development, both rural and urban housing, drinking water and sanitation, and welfare of SCs, STs and minorities all taken together have faced cuts amounting to 1 percent of the total budgeted expenditure or nearly Rs. 10,000 crores. If we break these down and adjust for the increases in the Prime Ministers pet projects ‘Swachh Bharat’ and urban housing through public private partnerships (PPP), then the reductions in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the Mid-day Meal Scheme, the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), the National Rural Health Mission and the Indira Aawas Yojana are not insignificant. Apart from not allowing for the scaling up of these critical programmes, the reduced budgetary support implies that the roughly 1 crore ‘honorarium’ workers employed by these programmes will not see an increase in their meagre wages and will continue to remain close to the poverty line.

Not to be seen as wanting in generosity, the Budget Statement increases the provision for food subsidy by a ‘generous’ sum of Rs. 2,000 crores to Rs. 124,000 crores. The full implementation of the National Food Security Act would require significantly more budgetary support than this which implies, despite the expressed promise of transparency, that the BJP government has decided to accept the Shanta Kumar Committee recommendation of restructuring the Food Corporation of India and curtailing the reach of the NFSA.

Universal Social Security defined by ability to pay

Additionally, the BJP government commits itself to creating a ‘universal social security system’ for which government is willing to commit Rs. 1200 crores. This will support contributory pension, accident and life insurance schemes which the government will support for a maximum of five years. Even through the most generous computation, these schemes can reach 1.2 crore people or about 2.5% of the working population.

Towards furthering a ‘universal social security system’, government commits itself to providing workers a choice between health care benefits under Employee State Insurance and contributory health insurance and between Employees’ Provident Fund and the New Pension Scheme. In ‘choosing’ between health care and retiral benefits that are guaranteed and protected under law, the government is playing on the monetary hardship of workers ‘below a certain threshold of monthly income’ in pushing them to low contribution options in the private sector. The BJP government’s objective is not to create a system of universal social security but to universalise, in every sphere of economic life, the principle of capacity to pay and ability to pay.

‘Ease of Business’ means the exchequer will guarantee the profits

Having turned over the task of social security to private insurance and pension companies, the BJP government recognises that the private sector is in trouble and cannot really drive growth and lacks the capacity to invest in the economy to drive growth and create jobs, as its Economic Survey admitted: ‘The situation of Indian public-sector banks and corporate balance sheets suggests that the expectation that the private sector will drive investment needs to be moderated’. And even though it explicitly acknowledges in both its 2014-15 and 2015-16 budgets that the PPP model does not work, the BJP government committed itself to the PPP model (3PIndia) as the institutionalised sponsorship of the private sector by government in its 2014 Budget, and now, it goes one step further in cementing this sponsorship by confirming that the ‘sovereign will have to bear a major part of the risk’ for capital investment. These ‘sovereign’ or government guaranteed loans will come from tax free bonds.

The commitment of the BJP government to subsidise the private sector cannot be in doubt. The job will not be completed merely by guaranteeing loans for private investment. For a start, it will hand over five ultra mega power projects to the private sector after putting in place ‘all clearances’ in the ‘plug-and-play mode’. Besides these five power projects, government will consider other infrastructure projects, too, including railways, ports, highways and airports. The package of the BJP government’s policy issued through the present and the previous BSs along with the Land Acquisition and Coal Ordinances represent that for ‘ease of business’ to succeed, ‘eminent domain’ must be in place. ‘Eminent domain’ must exist for the private sector so that ease of profit allows Prime Minster Narendra Modi’s ‘ease of business’ model to work.

In the knowledge that ease of profits for infrastructure will not be sufficient to pull in enough investable resources to drive 8+ percent growth, the BJP government must necessarily turn its attention to foreign investment. Various tax concessions have been extended to foreign portfolio investors, including those who do not wish to register themselves in the country. Special provisions are also to be put in place under the BS to ease the functioning of private equity and hedge funds that are in polite company called Alternative Investment Funds. Most of all, the distinction between foreign portfolio investment (that is speculative and moves from one country to another and one company to another) and foreign direct investment (that is stable in a single company) has been effectively extinguished. This will serve to tilt the balance towards more short-termism, more speculation and even less towards long-term investment in technology, innovation and skills than is currently the case with multinational companies.

In addition to the foregoing, the BJP government promises to lower corporate tax – the tax on companies – from the present 30 percent to 25 percent over the length of this government. The budget abolishes wealth tax and replaces it with a 2 percent cess on those with incomes of Rs. 1 crore or more. This will brings in Rs. 9,000 crores a year or about 0.50 percent of the total budgeted government expenditure for 2015-16. Conversely, service tax will rise from 12.36 percent to 14 percent. While on the one hand, the BJP government has made clear that it will continue to provide tax breaks on corporate and personal income taxes by raising service tax and confirming the introduction of the Goods and Service Tax by April 2016, the BJP government will extend the reliance on indirect taxes. Although the BS does announce a new legislation for hunting down black money abroad, its scrapping of the proposal for the Direct Tax Code to plug loopholes in taxes and putting the General Anti-Avoidance Rules on the back burner is an indication of how serious the BJP government is about plugging loopholes at home.

The BJP government’s tax proposals will potentially ‘forego’ about Rs. 600,000 crores. Of this, some 10% or Rs. 60,000 crores will be the direct benefit to private companies. While the BJP government expects the economy to grow at 8+ percent a year, the BS only estimates an increase in tax revenues of 1.35% as compared to the previous year. The Tax-to-GDP ratio is expected to dip to less than 10 percent over the next year. This would mean taking the country back to the same state as at the time of the last BJP government.

Who will pay for government expenditure?

The questions remains: where is the money to meet government expenditure going to come from, in the absence of increased tax revenue, and where will the money for capital investment come from, to create the jobs that will ‘make in India’? Monies to meet government’s expenditure will come from two sources – first, nearly 10 percent of government expenditure will be met through interest and dividend payments to government by public sector undertakings and the sale of shares (disinvestment) in public sector undertakings. The most important source of government funds will come through borrowings.

As for job creation, from its own side, the BJP government plans to invest a sum total of Rs. 70,000 crores in capital investment. The BS does not tell us where it will go. No one knows at this point how much of it will go to shoring up PPPs. At any rate, the amounts on offer are in fact less than 0.50 percent of GDP. This is going to be far from sufficient to drive 8 percent growth or take it to the ‘double-digits’, as the BS promises for the years ahead. The BJP government is relying on an additional Rs. 320,000 crores to be invested by public sector corporations. Hence ‘make in India’, too, will be for the private sector with the resources of the public sector.

The general condition of the economy is poor and the ‘roadmap for the future’, as put forward by the BS, provides little hope for working people. For one, the entire fiscal framework – of taxation and spending – of the BJP government will contribute further to inequalities. Second, the increased ‘sovereign’ borrowings to finance investment will be further tax-free transfers to the rich. And third, the dependence on foreign investment flows pushes up the value of the rupee which makes our exports more expensive abroad and makes it difficult to export our goods abroad. This bodes poorly for sustained and stable levels of economic growth and therefore for job creation and wages with growing inequalities.

And yet, perhaps, there is still a chance for achhe din! The BS promises that if the rich pay taxes beyond expectation (the level of which remains unstated), the BJP government will throw in an additional Rs. 10,000 crores (or a total of 0.50 percent of budgeted expenditure) to fund the MGNREGA, Integrated ICDS, Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) and the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana. Working people must live in the hope that the rich get richer – for it is then that the BJP government will throw crumbs at them.

Gautam Mody is the General Secretary of New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI).

Despite U.N. treaties, war against drugs a losing battle

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Less than eight per cent of drug users worldwide have access to a clean syringe program. (Fahim Siddiqi/IPS)

Less than eight per cent of drug users worldwide have access to a clean syringe program. (Fahim Siddiqi/IPS)

by Thalif Deen, IPS News

As the call for the decriminalization of drugs steadily picks up steam worldwide, a new study by a British charity concludes there has been no significant reduction in the global use of illicit drugs since the creation of three key U.N. anti-drug conventions, the first of which came into force over half a century ago.

“Illicit drugs are now purer, cheaper, and more widely used than ever,” says the report, titled Casualties of War: How the War on Drugs is Harming the World’s Poorest, released Thursday by the London-based Health Poverty Action.

The study also cites an opinion poll that shows more than eight in 10 Britons believe the war on drugs cannot be won. And over half favor legalizing or decriminalizing at least some illicit drugs.

The international treaties to curb drug trafficking include the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

But over the last few decades, several countries have either decriminalized drugs, either fully or partially, or adopted liberal drug laws, including the use of marijuana for medical reasons.

These countries include the Netherlands, Portugal, Czech Republic, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Ecuador, Honduras and Mexico, among others.

According to the report, the governments of Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala seek open, evidence-based discussion on U.N. drugs policy reform.

And “both the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS not only share this view, but have called for the decriminalization of drugs use.”

Asked if the United Nations was doing enough in the battle against drugs, Catherine Martin, policy officer at Health Poverty Action, told IPS, “The problem is that the U.N. is doing too much of the wrong things, and not enough of the right things.”

She pointed out that an estimated 100 billion dollars worldwide is poured into drug law enforcement every year, driven by U.N. conventions on drug control.

“However, this approach hasn’t reduced drug use or managed to control the illicit drug trade. Instead, it keeps drugs profitable and cartels powerful (fueling corruption); spurs violent conflict and human rights violations; and disproportionately punishes small-scale drug producers and people who use drugs,” she added.

The report says UK development organizations have largely remained silent, while calls for drugs reform come from Southern counterparts, British tycoon Sir Richard Branson, current and former presidents, Nobel prizewinning economists and ex-U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan.

The charity urges the UK development sector to demand pro-poor moves as nations prepare for the U.N. general assembly’s special session on drugs next year.

Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including British groups, have no lead contact or set process for participating in the session, says the report.

The report claims many small-scale farmers grow and trade drugs in developing countries as their only income source.

And punitive drug policies penalize farmers who do not have access to the land, sufficient resources and infrastructure that they would need to make a sustainable living from other crops.

Alternative crops or development programs often fail farmers, because they are led by security concerns and ignore poor communities’ needs, the report notes.

The charity argues the militarization of the war on drugs has triggered and been used to justify murder, mass imprisonment and systematic human rights violations.

The report stresses that criminalizing drugs does not reduce use, but spreads disease, deters people from seeking medical treatment and leads to policies that exclude millions of people from vital pain relief.

Less than eight per cent of drug users have access to a clean needle program, or opioid substitution therapy, and under four per cent of those living with HIV have access to HIV treatment.

In West Africa, people with conditions linked to cancer and AIDS face severe restrictions in access to pain relief drugs, amid feared diversion to illicit markets, according to the study.

Low and middle-income countries have 90 per cent of AIDS patients around the globe and half of the world’s people with cancer, but use only six per cent of morphine given for pain management.

Health Poverty Action states the war on drugs criminalizes the poor, and women are worst hit, through disproportionate imprisonment and the loss of livelihoods.

Drug crop eradication devastates the environment and forces producers underground, often to areas with fragile ecosystems.

Asked what the U.N.’s focus should be, Martin told IPS the world body should focus on evidence-based, pro-poor policies that treat illicit drugs as a health issue, not a security matter.

These policies must protect human rights and end the harm that current policies do to the poor and marginalized, she said.

“Drug policy reform should support and fund harm reduction measures, and ensure access to essential medicines for the five billion people worldwide who live in countries where overly strict drug laws limit access to crucial pain medications,” Martin said.

Meanwhile, the report says that drug policy, like climate change or gender, is a cross-cutting issue that affects most aspects of development work: poverty, human rights, health, democracy, the environment.

And current drug policies undermine economic growth and make development work less effective, the report adds.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

An interactive session with Christopher Harrison of Biorhythm

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Christopher Harrison

Christopher Harrison is the founder of AntiGravity Inc & artistic director of AntiGravity Entertainment. He is also the inventor of the “Harrison Academy” Hammock, author of 7 fitness techniques, Aerial Om Master & the father of Aerial Yoga. At a function held recently in the Jubilee Room of Hotel Sun-N-Sand Christopher Harrion announced, “Biorhythm India has entered into a Joint Venture with AntiGravity® Fitness USA to bring aerial fitness program to India to bring the only aerial fitness program that is certified by the Governing bodies of America & Europe to India.” The Fitness industry pie in India is expected to touch the 50,000 crore mark by 2030. Giving him a boost on the dias were Ms. Nital Raval, Proprietor, Biorhythm India, Bollywood Choreogrpher Longinus Fernandes of “Jai Ho” fame & Jignesh Raval, Business Leader & Partner, Biorhythms India. This highly interesting & interactive press conference was moderated by Viveck Shettyy, the All India Head of Media Cell of Consumer Guidance Society of India (CGSI), who kept the audience in great humour with his sharp & witty observations. Present herewith is the 1st person account of Christopher Harrison.

“When you open up space in your body, you open up space in your mind. AntiGravity techniques help people to open up and be free. You are only as young as your spine is flexible and your mind is open. AntiGravity techniques are like guzzling from the fountain of youth. I learned yoga in India in the 1990’s and it changed my entire perspective on life and my ‘art of movement’. Now, I get to bring back my own version of mind & body connection that I call AntiGravity. I hope to honor the greats before me and the beautiful legacy of yoga in doing so.”

“AntiGravity is the perfect integration of body & mind through 7 special techniques. AntiGravity® Yoga is purely a Western phenomenon that borrows from the East to bring about the union of body & mind. AntiGravity techniques allow for Zero-Compression Inversions, which decompress the spine & the mind, bringing about greater health & less pain. It is about defying the laws of physics and about staying light-hearted. Take a class and experience the ananda – joy. The AntiGravity phenomenon has finally arrived in India. See why all the Hollywood celebrities are practicing it and discover for yourself,  the fountain of youth. We handle the biological cycle of our body in a very logical way. It makes people fitter, taller & better. In fact my real life story is an inspiration and my  journey from illness to cutting edge fitness was indeed remarkable.”

“Your body is the only place that you have to live. So you better take very good care of it. Discover the fun quotient in exercising. if you can smile while you exercise, then that is indeed a great form exercise. Growth is never merely by share of chances, its force of working together. AntiGravity techniques create a community of individuals that come together to establish greater health – which is our true wealth. Biorhythms are different hereditary cycles regulating memory, ambition, co-ordination, endurance, temperament & emotions in human body. Each has specific function and its life cycle. These cycles begin at birth and oscillate in a steady wave pattern throughout our lives. At Biorhythm India, we synchronise your mind & body through the state-of-the-art techniques for an enriched modus Vivendi.”

“Biorhythm India offers customised program for different age groups, personalised training, yoga for kids, corporate yoga, group yoga, yoga for adults, chair yoga etc. AntiGravity fitness has a reciprocal relationship to yoga. Its moves are derived from Pilates, dance & calisthenics in addition to yoga. Key to Anti Gravity fitness is the hammock, a swath of silky fabric which is hang suspended in the air that acts as your support system.”

“Biorhythm India are an AntiGravity® Fitness certified Yoga Studio situated in Pune. AntiGravity® Fitness is the creative company responsible for bringing Suspension Training to the fitness sector. They are the originators of the first Aerial Yoga, Aerial Pilates & Aerial Barre techniques. AntiGravity®, the premier brand for Aerial Fitness world-wide owns 7 copyrighted techniques and a training academy with close to 2000 instructors. It is also an international licensing & franchising company operating in over 50 countries whose star-studded clients include: Richard Branson, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mariah Carey, Katie Couric, Crunch Fitness, Four Seasons Resorts, Holmes Place, Virgin Active and many more.”

“AntiGravity techniques are artistic & refined like Ballet or Acrobatics. They are comprehensive & intelligent like Pilates, Philosophical & Physical like Aikido, Challenging & Structured like Gymnastics, High-Minded & Healing like Yoga, Playful & Accessible like Dance, Empowering like the Aerial Arts, Relief-giving & rejuvenating like a Massage.”

“Today, AntiGravity® Yoga is reaching such diverse communities. It is currently in 40 countries around the world and fully growing. The growth of AntiGravity® in Asia is stupendous. AntiGravity® Fitness techniques & philosophy are a perfect marriage with the culture of Asia. Asian people do tend to integrate health & wellness in their lives and are also very open-minded when it comes to the healing arts. AntiGravity techniques embrace the Asian philosophy of true health being a process of connecting body/mind/spirit.”

Photos: One of Ukraine’s most nationalistic cities has become a refuge for nearly 2,000 Muslims

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Elmaz and her husband Timur Barotov, refugees from Crimea who now live in Lviv.(Misha Friedman)

Elmaz and her husband Timur Barotov, refugees from Crimea who now live in Lviv.(Misha Friedman)

by Misha Friedman, Quartz

Among the million-plus Ukrainians displaced by the fighting in the east are thousands of Jews and Muslims. Life is complicated for both groups. In a previous photo-essay, Misha Friedman documented the Jews of Dnipropetrovsk; in this one, he highlights the Crimean Tatars, a Muslim community who, like the Jews, have a long history of persecution in the region. Thousands have fled Crimea since Russia annexed it last year, and many have gone to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.

It’s an unlikely destination. While the city has a long and cosmopolitan history, reflected in its picturesque mix of architecture, its recent past has been less friendly. When Germany invaded in 1941, the city was in Polish hands, and its ethnic Ukrainian residents—at the time outnumbered heavily by Poles and Jews—enthusiastically helped the Nazi forces round up and kill Jews, and later took part in massacres of Poles. Since then the city has been a bastion of Ukrainian nationalism.

Yet one thing unites the Muslim Crimean Tatars and the Orthodox Christian Ukrainians: their enmity towards Russia. And so, for now at least, the Tatars are welcome in Lviv. By the time Friedman visited in January, some 1,700 had made it their home, and more were arriving. (Except where noted, all photos are by Friedman; text is reported by Friedman and written by Gideon Lichfield.)

People congregate after Friday prayers. There is no mosque, so they use a space rented by another Muslim diaspora, the Dagestanis.

Diaspora is nothing new for the Crimean Tatars (who are not to be confused with the Volga Tatars in central Russia). In 1944, after the Soviet Union had recaptured Ukraine from the German army, Josef Stalin ordered the entire Crimean Tatar population—some 180,000 people—deported, allegedly for collaborating with the Nazis. They were given 15-20 minutes to collect some belongings, and packed on to trains. Most were sent to Uzbekistan. Not until the mid-1980s, under Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms, were they allowed to start coming back.

Alim Aliev, founder of Crimea SOS, a local NGO that helps new arrivals fit in, at its office in Lviv.

By the time of the 2001 census there were 240,000 Tatars back in Crimea. It’s estimated that fewer than 10% have left; Russia conducted a census late last year but hasn’t released figures about ethnicity (pdf, in Russian).

Like the displaced Jews in Dnipropetrovsk, the Tatars who have moved to Lviv have had to find new professions. “I didn’t meet anybody who does what he did back home,” Friedman says. Yashar, a former high-school French teacher, learned to make plov, the rice-and-meat stew that is Uzbekistan’s national dish, when he was living there; now he cooks and sells it from a street stall in Lviv.

Yashar, a high-school French teacher from Crimea who now cooks and sells Uzbek plov at a street stall.

On a good day Yashar sells two large pots’ worth of plov at around $2 a serving.

Ernest Abkelyanov, 44, owned a convenience store in Simferopol. He came to Lviv with his wife and four children and is now unemployed. He acts as a religious leader for the community and helps deliver humanitarian aid and orient new arrivals from Crimea.

Ernest Abkelyanov, a former convenience-store owner in Crimea, and his family in Lviv.

Suleiman, a truck driver, came to Lviv with his wife and six children. Also unemployed, he works part-time making dumplings at the Crimea, a café frequented by Tatars. The café’s name is a kind of local joke, Friedman explains. “The men spend a lot of time in the café, and when someone calls their phones and asks where they are, they say, ‘I’m in Crimea!’”

Suleiman, who was a truck driver in Crimea, with his family.

The door of the Krym (Crimea) cafe in Lviv, a hangout for the Tatar community.

Suleiman and Ernest say a prayer during a Muslim naming ceremony for a two-week-old baby, born to another Tatar family in Lviv.

Suleiman at the baby-naming ceremony.

Lviv wears its nationalism on its sleeve. The people killed during the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv in 2014, which led to the ouster of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, are martyrs here as much as in the capital.

Graffiti commemorating the “heavenly hundred,” the people killed during the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv in 2014.

Unity Day, a government holiday on Jan. 22, is taken especially seriously in Lviv. It marks the unification of eastern and western Ukraine in 1919 and their brief existence as an independent country before the USSR and Poland took over and redivided the country in 1920. Members of the Crimean Tatar community join in the ceremonies.

New army recruits sing the national anthem at a ceremony on Ukrainian Unity Day.

Alim Aliev (center) singing the national anthem on Unity Day.

Ernest Abkelyanov and his daughter at the Unity Day celebration.

A protestor during Unity Day celebrations with posters demonizing Russian president Vladimir Putin. “Putin, remember how Hitler ended” is one of his signs.

Though his signs compared Putin to Hitler, the old man told Friedman, “The Yids are to blame for everything.”

In Dnipropetrovsk, Friedman had encountered the family of Asher Cherkassky, an Orthodox Jew who fights in one of Ukraine’s volunteer battalions against the pro-Russian separatists. In Lviv, he met Timur Barotov (link in Ukrainian), a former Ukrainian naval officer who joined a volunteer battalion to fight the Russian forces in Crimea. When Russia annexed the peninsula, some members of the Ukrainian military there switched their allegiances to Moscow. Barotov left instead, and has become a minor celebrity, playing a part in a film about Ukrainian history (link in Ukrainian). Barotov’s wife Elmaz (pictured with him at the top of this story) is Crimean Tatar; he himself is part Ukrainian, part Tajik.

Timur Barotov, a retired naval officer in Crimea who joined a Ukrainian volunteer battalion to fight against the Russian invasion.

Uproar over Mufti's remark in Parliament; Opposition walks out of lower house

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets Mufti Mohammad Sayeed after his swearing in as the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday. ANI Photo

Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets Mufti Mohammad Sayeed after his swearing in as the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday. ANI Photo

New Delhi: The members of the opposition in the lower house of the Indian Parliament Monday staged a walk out from following uproar over Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s remark of crediting Pakistan and Hurriyat for peaceful elections in the region.

The opposition walk out took place minutes after federal home minister Rajnath Singh put forward the government’s views in this regard.

“I have already had discussion with the prime minister. I am making statement after his approval. The credit for conducive environment during polls in Jammu and Kashmir goes to the Election Commission, our armed forces and people of J-K,” said Singh in Lok Sabha.

The members of the opposition instead demanded a statement from prime minister Narendra Modi on the issue.

“We want the prime minister to speak on this matter in the house and condemn statement given by Jammu and Kashmir chief minister so that a clear message can be given,” said Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge.

(ANI)

Feel sad over false reports: Yogendra Yadav

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yogendra yadav

New Delhi: AAP leader Yogendra Yadav on Monday said that he felt sad over false reports about him and Prashant Bhushan being unhappy with the happenings in the party, added this was a time to work with a large heart following their big win in Delhi.

“I feel sad and at the same time (feel like) laughing too after reading whatever is being said in the media about me and Prashant ji for the last two days… Delhi has given such huge mandate to AAP. I would appeal that we should not let the faith of people dwindle in the AAP,” Yadav said in a tweet Monday morning.

“Today it is the time to work for the country. The country has great expectation from us (AAP),” Yadav added.

Reflecting his discontent about the functioning of the Aam Aadmi Party, senior leader Prashant Bhushan has written a letter raising questions about some decisions of party convenor Arvind Kejriwal who is now chief minister of Delhi.

In the letter, apparently written to members of party’s national executive, Bhushan has raised questions about the party running a “person-centric” campaign in Delhi polls and not following some of its professed principles.

(IANS)

Jagmohan Dalmiya elected BCCI president for the second time

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Jagmohan Dalmiya

Chennai: After a gap of over 10 years, veteran cricket administrator Jagmohan Dalmiya was on Monday made an uncontested comeback as full-time president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) during its annual general meeting (AGM) here.

The former International Cricket Council (ICC) president, whose previous tenure as BCCI chief ended in 2004, was a ‘neutral’ candidate from both the factions in the board. While one camp is led by the sidelined board president N. Srinivasan, the other camp is led by Maharashtra strongman and former ICC boss Sharad Pawar.

Apart from the 74-year-old Dalmiya, the other new entrant is Haryana’s Anirudh Choudhary who has been appointed the new treasurer while Himachal Pradesh’s Anurag Thakur was named the board secretary.

Anurag, a nominee from the Pawar faction, won the secretary post by one vote. His opponent was Baroda’s Sanjay Patel, favoured by Srinivasan.

Anirudh, belonging to Srinivasan camp, defeated Uttar Pradesh’s Rajeev Shukla, a former BCCI vice-president, for the post of treasurer.

As per BCCI rules, it was the turn of the east zone associations this year to nominate candidates for the elections.

Dalmiya’s elevation to the position was necessitated by Srinivasan after the latter was forced to stay away from the election owing to a Supreme Court directive. Srinivasan was barred by the Supreme Court from contesting the election following the Indian Premier League (IPL) spot fixing scam. He is a nominee of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA).

The court is currently hearing the IPL spot-fixing scandal in which conflict of interest with regards to Srinivasan’s position as the BCCI president and owner of the IPL team Chennai Super Kings has come in for sharp criticism from the court.

Former ICC chief Pawar, who was BCCI president from 2005-2008, was also eyeing the post, but had to backtrack after failing to find a proposer and seconder from the east zone.

(IANS)

Prashant Bhushan slams 'one person-centric campaign' by AAP, calls for 'swaraj'

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PrashanT-Bhushan

New Delhi: Crisis deepened in AAP with senior leader Prashant Bhushan accusing the party of running a “one person-centric” campaign revolving around Arvind Kejriwal during the Delhi elections contrary to its principles.

Bhushan said the ‘one person-centric’ campaign was making the party look like other conventional parties and called for more “swaraj” within the organisation.

“…one person-centric campaign, which was run during Delhi elections, is making our party look more and more like other conventional parties that are also one- person centric. The only difference being that we still claim that we are wedded to the principles of ‘swaraj’ while they don’t.

“Running one person-centric campaign may be effective, but does that justify sacrificing our principles? We will need to make a conscious course correction if we have to get away from a supremo controlled party,” Bhushan said in a letter to members of AAP National Executive, which met last Thursday.

Serious differences appeared to have cropped up within AAP, including over Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s role in the party, with internal Lokpal Admiral Ramdas pointing to two camps emerging within top leadership and asking the party to consider ‘one-man, one-post’ arrangement.

Bhushan also accused Kejriwal of not giving more autonomy to the states to take their decision on contesting elections.

Bhushan and another AAP leader Yogendra Yadav wanted the party to contest the Haryana state elections, but another section led by Kejriwal was against it.

“Swaraj means decentralised decision making. On those principles it is the state unit who have to decide whether we should contest elections in the state. But we are deciding for them and ordering them not to contest elections.

“Even the National Executive had decided when to allow the states and when to contest elections but that decision was frustrated by Kejriwal by not allowing the states to contest elections. We made mockery of the principles of democracy and swaraj,” Bhushan said.

Bhushan also sought transparency in the way funds are spent which, he claimed, is currently being done in an “arbitrary” manner. “The party now receives considerable donations. There is, however, no systematic planning on how these funds are to be spend. We do not have any empowered committee or decision making system of deciding on how the funds are to be spent,” he said.

“With the result that such decisions are being made in an arbitrary manner by a few people who are not authorised by the National Executive to take such decisions. There are some volunteers who are paid by the party, but a vast majority of them are not… Even these decisions need to be taken in a systematic and democratic manner,” Bhushan said.

Bhushan also slammed the party over its “lack of transparency”. He said while the party criticises BJP and Congress, it has not put up its expenditure on website.

“Our party was founded on the principle of transparency and accountability which is embedded in the vision document of the party. We had claimed that parties should come under RTI Act and berated BJP and Congress for flouting the information Commission directive to them to come under RTI.

“We said, we will put all our accounts on public website. But what is the reality today. Far from bringing the party under RTI, we don’t even have our accounts on the website. We have put our donations but not expenses. We don’t even put decision of our constitutional bodies like National Executive, or the PAC on the website, what to say of the minutes,” he said.

“In fact, as far as I am aware, even decision of PAC or NE meetings are not maintained what to say of making them transparent,” the letter said.

In a joint letter to National Executive members, Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav is believed to have highlighted contentious issues like expanding the PAC.

Referring to the controversy where AAP MLA from Uttam Nagar Naresh Balyan was booked after illegal liqour was allegedly seized from his residence, the two leaders demanded thorough investigation by the party into this case.

They also demanded “activation” of the discipline and grievance committee.

(PTI)

Hate rant: Stone ‘them’ and deport to Pakistan says Balika Saraswati at the Virat Hindu Samajotsava

by

Balika Saraswati

Mangaluru: Calling upon the Hindus to be united and fight for the cause of Hindu Rashtra, Sadhwi Balika Saraswati said that it should be everyone’s priority to protect the interest of the Hindu nation.

She was delivering the keynote address that the Vishwa Virat Hindu Samajotsav organized as part of the golden jubilee celebration of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad at Nehru Maidan in the city on Sunday evening.

The young Sadhwi, who did not allow the saffron brigade to feel the absence of VHP supremo Praveen Togadia on the stage of Samajotsav, made several indirect attempts to compare Indian Muslims with Pakistanis throughout her Desi accent Hindi speech.

Spurred by the positive response of the thrilled crowd, the firebrand speaker exhorted the Hindus to take an oath to re-establish the Hindu Rashtra in India and protect their ‘nation’, ‘religion’ and ‘women’ from ‘enemies’.

Balika Saraswati

Lashing out at AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, she said that the former lacks the guts to speak in front of Hindus. Recalling the controversial statements of Owaisi brothers, she said that they are the enemies of the nation.

“He (Owaisi) is still alive in this country because he took the name of Ramji or else it would be difficult to recognize him even with an autopsy,” she said.

The Sadhwi went on to claim that ‘such people’ live in India but praise and support Pakistan. “They must be stoned and deported to Pakistan,” she said.

Not only Akbaruddin Owaisi, but the whole Pakistan cannot stop us from building Ram Mandir. “He should remember that Hindus can build Ram Mandir even in Islamabad,” she said.

She said that laws apply only for Hindus. “In Kerala and Assam, I have seen people performing Namaz five times a day on roads against law. They don’t follow the order of the Supreme Court.

They get subsidy for Haj pilgrimage, but we get nothing for Amarnath Yatra. Ghar Wapsi is being depicted as a big crime in media, but one can understand the pain only when our girls get converted into other religion overnight. Conversion is still going on in Jharkhand and many other states.”

She opined that the community can stop cow slaughtering by not selling cows and treating them as mother. Every woman should take care of at least one cow to stop cow slaughtering in the nation.

Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari Dr D Veerendra Heggade said that Vishwa Hindu Parishad played a major role in uniting Hindu society in the past 50 years. It organised several activities for the financial and religious equality of people. Meanwhile, Heggade opined that Samajotsava was not just a celebration, but a forum to decide the future. The rituals and culture of the community should be developed.

Meanwhile, Dr Heggade released ‘Amruta Sinchana,’ a souvenir of Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

‘Police thinking of booking Sadhvi’

The Mangaluru police have admitted that Balika Saraswati, the main speaker at Virat Hindu Samajotsav held at Nehru Maidan in the city, made apparent attempts to communally provoke the mob through her speech.

The police are thinking of filing a case, he added. “The speech is indeed provocative. We are considering action,” Mr. Murugan said. The police have also taken note of the organisers extending the programme beyond 5.30 p.m., the allotted time of closure, he said.

(Agencies)

"I have no regrets whatsoever as I firmly & strongly feel & believe that my "best" is yet to come": Ashmit Patel

by

Ashmit Patel

by Shaheen Raaj

Ashmit Patel happens to be a cool and chilled out dude. He is an unassuming guy who is sensible enough to take, everything in his stride, with a pinch of salt. Yes! Even the ups and downs, more downs than ups, in his professional career as well as his personal life. Yet what makes him most happy is the fact that he goes to bed and even wakes up from it with a contented smile on his countenance. In his decade long checkered and illustrious career he may have done films that can be counted on his own fingertips, but he has no regrets whatsoever as he firmly and strongly feel and believe that his “Best” is yet to come. From his debut film ‘Inteha’ to his, this year’s release, ‘Jai Ho’ he has had an interestingly impressive line up of movies. And now he is ready to spring a surprise with a cop’s role in a Horror flick named ‘Home Stay-Stay Alive’, whose impending release is just round the corner.

To set the ball rolling in your court how would you describe your film journey till this date?

I would say that it was interesting enough. No doubt I too had my own ups and downs, in my case more downs than ups. But at the end of the day I feel blessed that with every night’s fall, I go to bed with a smile on my face and then again with the rise of the day I wake up, again with a smile on my face. Yet I have no regrets whatsoever as I firmly and strongly feel and believe that my “Best” is yet to come. That apart I am also aware that every actor cannot be an Aamir Khan, a Salman Khan or even a Shahrukh Khan.

Your upcoming film is ‘Home Stay-Stay Alive’. So tell us what is it all about?

It happens to be the story of a girl who goes to Coorg to surprise her fiance. Out there she is put up in Home Stay, which is like a rented service apartment, a kind of guest house for a paying guest. In a span of 24 hours, varied spooky incidents take place including a murder.

What kind of character are you enacting in ‘Home Stay-Stay Alive’?

I am enacting the role of a cop. My 1st uniformed role. I had earlier played the role of a cop in ‘Nazar’, but I was a plain clothes CID officer. So I am happy that I have finally got my share of a cop’s Stars and Stripes including a cop’s uniform in ‘Home Stay-Stay Alive’. And believe me it feels great to be attired in a cop’s uniform. Anyways coming to the cop’s role, he is very forthright and well respected. He does not mince words and puts everyone at ease by giving a good reasoning in a logical manner, especially the way he handles the members of the fourth estate during a murder investigation.

How was the experience of shooting in Coorg with Sayali Bhagat & débutante director Santosh Kodenkeri?

Must say it was great fun. We used to shoot for half a day, in spite of the film being shot in the trilingual language of Hindi, Kannada and Tamil, and the rest of the day used to be spent in exploring every nook and corner of Coorg. And then it used to be party time at night. As for Sayali Bhagat I hardly knew her except for meeting her socially 2 or 3 times but once we met on the sets we developed a good rapport. And as this was the 1st film of my director Santosh Kodenkeri, I found him to be very humble and down to earth and it was great fun working with him. I must make a special mention of Ravi Kale who is playing a negative role in ‘Home Stay-Stay Alive’. He is just fantastically fabulous.

What according to you are the highlights of ‘Home Stay-Stay Alive’?

I think it is the script, the thrills, the technically sound background score and of course this movie can be rated highest on the performance level of all the artistes including me.

So what’s up next on your professional front?

There are a couple of projects on the anvil but as of now I am very high on a particularly new project, a high octane action drama, for which nowadays I am sporting a heavily bearded look. I can’t reveal anything more about it, no not even the title, because of the strict non-disclosure condition of the contract. Period!

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