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Archives for April 2018

The Sucecessful Congressman who knows no defeat, D K ShivaKumar

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Energy Minister DK Shivakumar is one of the most successful Congress leaders in Karnataka. He tasted political success in the 1980s when he was very young. He is known to not just keep winning for himself but can ensure victories for party men in the constituencies he is entrusted with. He has plenty of money: the man has officially declared assets worth Rs 618 crore. At 55, Shivakumar is not just young, politically speaking, he also comes from the numerically strong Vokkaliga community. It is precisely because of this combination of factors that the five-time MLA is seen as a future chief minister after the current crop of senior leaders fade. And, he is waiting patiently.
On the negative side, he has a big image issue. In 2013, after Siddaramaiah took over as chief minister, he came under tremendous pressure from activists led by freedom fighter HS Doreswamy who carried out a public campaign opposing Shivakumar’s inclusion in the Cabinet.

Shivakumar declared that he had Rs 618 crore worth assets, his wife, Usha, he said has assets worth Rs 112 crore. Compared to his declared assets of Rs 215 crore during the 2013 elections, Shivakumar&… Read More
Karunakar Rao
In August last year, Shivakumar made national headlines after he hosted a group of Gujarat Congress MLAs at a resort in Bengaluru to prevent cross voting in the Rajya Sabha elections in which AICC leader Ahmed Patel was a candidate. The senior Minister handled the task successfully, but faced a series of income tax raids which reportedly unearthed crores of undeclared income. Besides politics, he is also involved with a number of activities including running educational institutions, granite, and real estate businesses. While Shivakumar may settle tax claims and come out of it, it will take some time for the criminal cases the IT department has slapped on him — accusing him of trying to destroy evidence during the raids — to be resolved.
In the last three decades, DK, as he is popularly known, has grown from being a rude politician to a suave minister. Known for his organising skills and deep pockets, Shivakumar was chosen by his party to be chairman of the Congress’ campaign committee before the May 12 Assembly polls. The man commands some clout in the Vokkaliga belt of old Mysuru region, from where his younger brother DK Suresh is a Lok Sabha member. His focus now is to ensure a win for party men loyal to him across the state. If the Congress were to get a majority in the May 12 polls, and if Vokkaliga members get elected in large numbers, it will not be easy for the Congress to ignore his claim for the CM’s gaddi.

The Slow Road to Equality for India’s Women Farmers : A Distance Dream

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Failed by flawed government policies and left out of development programs, women farmers around India are coming together to demand fair treatment and access the support to which they are entitled.
Sitting outside her house in Rakhukhor village, Suhbawati Devi describes the daily routine she shares with her friends. “Our day begins at the break of the dawn,” says Devi, 41. “After completing all household work and sending the children to school, we go to the field to cultivate our land. In the afternoon, we return home to attend to our livestock. Soon after, we go back to the field where we work until sunset.”

The farms where the women work in eastern Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, are small. But they are essential to the survival of their families, who rely on the income they earn by selling the vegetables they grow. “We have a number of mouths to feed,” Devi says. “We pay for our children’s education and [we have to] be prepared for unforeseen expenses like someone falling ill or crops failing.”

Small and marginal land holdings – anything smaller than 2 hectares (4.9 acres) – account for almost half of the net irrigated land in India, and in most rural and semi-urban areas in Uttar Pradesh the average size of cultivating land for small and marginal farmers is only 0.5 hectares. Farms of that size do not produce enough to support the farmers’ often large families, so many men from the villages migrate to urban areas to work, leaving the entire burden of agricultural output on women.

A 2012 report by U.N. Women, the United Nations’ gender-equality agency, found that 79 percent of the women in India’s rural workforce are engaged in agricultural activities, compared with 63 percent of men. But women have almost no opportunity to make decisions about the land they work.

According the latest economic survey of India, women constitute more than 55 percent of the farming sector’s main workers – defined as anyone who spends six months or more a year making money through agricultural activities – yet they hold only 12.8 percent of agricultural assets.

To address that disparity, the government has introduced a number of measures over the past year. They include boosting access to micro-credit for women’s self-help groups and ensuring that at least 30 percent of the budget for all government agriculture development schemes is targeted to women. Last year the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare declared Oct. 15 Women Farmers’ Day.

But activists say the policies and interventions have done little to improve the lives of female farmers.

“I can tell you not a single government program has ever reached a woman in my village,” says Saroj Patil, 41, a farmer and activist from Jalgoan district in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

“The patriarchy is so dominant and caste system so deeply rooted that, in reality, women’s right to property is a distant dream. Men simply want women to be confined to the walls of their homes.”

‘They Always Ask for Our Husbands’
In Rakhukhor village, the women farmers say without property or land in their names, they are not eligible for loans offered under government schemes. With their husbands often away for months at a time, “when we need money to buy seeds or fertilisers or to deal with emergencies, we have to [pawn] our jewellery to a private money lender who exploits us by charging astronomical rates of interest,” Devi says.

“In reality, women have no say in the decision-making process. Women are not seen as farmers, but simply as the support hands for the men.”

When government workers come to the village to run programs to help farmers boost their crop yields, the women are often ignored and undervalued. “They always ask for our husbands,” says another farmer, Premshiela Devi (no relation). “There are no women officers in this sector and if we ask something twice the men get agitated, which makes us very uncomfortable. We are never invited to any meetings in the village where they discuss farmers’ issues because we don’t own any land. The society here believes that things outside home are the prerogative of men.”

Even in cases where land is registered in a woman’s name, it may only be because doing that can save a man some money – in some states, women property buyers pay lower stamp duty. “In reality, women have no say in the decision-making process,” says Shiraz Wajih, director of Gorakhpur Environment Action Group, an NGO that advocates for female farmers’ rights. “Women are not seen as farmers, but simply as the support hands for the men.”

Vicious Cycle of Poverty
On March 12, tens of thousands of farmers from across Maharashtra state marched on the state capital Mumbai, demanding fair prices for their produce and waivers on loans after unseasonable rain destroyed their crops.
Patil, the activist from Jalgoan, was among them. She says farmers across India believe the lopsided government policies are ruining their livelihoods. “Men are committing suicide because of the inability to pay their debts and it is women who bear the brunt,” she says. Between January and October last year, 2,414 farmers took their own lives in the state of Maharashtra alone.

Experts point to a number of government missteps that are putting a strain on India’s farmers, including confusing pricing mechanisms, poor storage facilities and short-sighted market regulation. Large farms can usually absorb the dramatic price swings that happen as a result, but for smallholder farmers, most of whom are women, “such erratic fluctuation of prices can be devastating as they have no other recourse to recover their loss when crops fail,” Nirja Bhatnagar, head of Action Aid in Maharashtra, says.

“The situation is so bad that in villages in Maharashtra most women farmers are malnourished, and this has a toll on their children’s health. The system is keeping farmers in the vicious cycle of poverty.”

Raised Voices and Collective Action
As they try to provide for their families in the face of failing policies and oppressive cultural attitudes, some women farmers in India are finding strength in numbers.

A self-help group of women farmers in Suras village in eastern Uttar Pradesh realized they were missing out on government benefits and so, in 2006, they decided to organize themselves into a union. Its head, Saraswati Devi, 55, now represents 29 villages, and leads protest rallies to the government’s doorstep in the state capital, Lucknow. “If the government does not come to us, we shall come to the government,” she says.

The women in the village say in the past they were sidelined when it came to government initiatives like the Kisan Credit Card scheme. The card gives farmers short-term credit during the planting and harvesting season and comes with benefits such as crop insurance and personal accident benefit. The scheme launched in 1998, but until recently women could not apply because most have no land registered in their names.

Then the women discovered they could apply for the cards if they formed a joint liability group, in which all of the members are responsible for repaying any money borrowed by the group. Banks in India are obliged to give joint liability groups access to loans and credit even if the members have no collateral. “The bank started trusting us because women repaid the loans more regularly than men,” Devi says.

Today, almost all the women farmers in the village have Kisan Credit Cards, as well as access to several other incentives that were once only offered to men.

“As women we have been exploited for centuries, but we never raised our voice,” Devi says. “But now we realize unless we are brave and strong from within and collectively raise our voice, women will never get their rights. Now we have decided to climb to the top of the mountain, and we will do that.”

IT department raids 11 contractors in Mysore and bangalore : Karnataka Assembly 2018

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The Income Tax Department on Tuesday conducted searches on a number of contractors in poll-bound Karnataka in connection with a tax evasion probe, officials said. They said the raids are being conducted against at least 11 contractors in Mysore and Bangalore by the investigation wing of the department.
These contractors are linked to public works jobs rendered by them on government tenders, they said.
The department had last week said, has that it has “gathered details of all contract payments made in the last quarter of the completed financial year in the state and is making a comparison with previous years for identifying abnormal cases.”

This data is being co-related with all bank transactions and available cash withdrawal intelligence, it had said.
It had said that as part of the enhanced alertness in the wake of the single-phase polling scheduled on May 12, the investigation wing of the department in Karnataka and Goa has “stepped up its surveillance and monitoring activities”.
In an instance unearthed recently, the department claimed a contractor in one of the districts of the state was searched and it was found that “he had made payments to another person who in turn had withdrawn cash from the amount transferred”.
“The cash withdrawn of Rs 55 lakh was seized and the contractor also admitted to concealment of Rs 16 crore,” it had said.

B Sreeramulu may take on Chief minister Siddaramaiah in Badami : Karnataka Assembly 2018

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Chief minister Siddaramaiah is expected to face his toughest political challenge yet as the BJP is likely to field B Sreeramulu against him in Badami constituency in Bagalkot district of north Karnataka.

The BJP’s move to field Sreeramulu started doing the rounds within hours of the Congress announcing Siddaramaiah as its candidate from Badami, in place of Dr Devraj Patil, on Sunday.
Siddaramaiah, who has filed his nomination from Chamundeshwari in Mysuru district, will file papers in Badami on Tuesday. The CM was believed to have chosen Badami in the face of a stiff challenge from JD(S) candidate GT Devegowda in Chamundeshwari.

So called corrupt free Modiji has allowed BJP to filed sriramulu shows its commitment to corruption, under yeddiyurappa, reddy brothers and srirmulu , karnataka lost all its mineral wealth..
worst people

A senior BJP functionary said party leaders have held two rounds of talks with Sreeramulu to prepare him for the fight and asked him to be ready to file his nomination papers on Tuesday. Sreeramulu has filed nomination from Molakalmaru segment in Chitradurga district.
Siddaramaiah is banking on the strong presence of Kuruba community in Badami. If Sreeramulu’s candidature becomes a reality, then the BJP will try to woo Lingayats and Valmiki Nayaka community members.

Govt acting against rape, but make sons more responsible : Narendra Modi

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the promulgation of an ordinance + on rape demonstrated his government’s determination to act on the issue, but stressed that people had to respect their daughters and make their sons more responsible for an atmosphere of safety.
Modi also pitched for a social movement to ensure the safety of women and girls while addressing a rally here.
“Shivraj ji (Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan) just referred to the capital punishment provided in the ordinance for rape against minors and I could see that it (the remark) received cheers from everyone present here,” he said.
“There is a government in Delhi which listens to your voice and takes decisions. So, the Centre has made a provision for capital punishment to the monstrous intent,” he said while referring to the recent ordinance.
The Union Cabinet on April 21 approved the ordinance under which the death penalty could be awarded to those convicted of raping girls below 12 years of age, amid a nationwide outrage over cases of sexual assault and murder of minors in Kathua + and Surat + and the rape of a teenager in Unnao + .
Modi, however, called upon the people to create an atmosphere for the safety of daughters.
“Families will have to enhance the honour and respect of daughters. Families should also make their sons more responsible,” he said while addressing the National Panchayati Raj Sammelan at Ramnagar in the tribal-dominated Mandla district.
Modi called upon the people to create an atmosphere for the safety of daughters
He also pitched for a social movement to ensure the safety of women and girls
Families should also make their sons more responsible,the PM said

“There is a government in Delhi which listens to your voice and takes decisions. So, the Centre has made a provision for capital punishment to the monstrous intent,” he said while referring to the recent ordinance.
The Union Cabinet on April 21 approved the ordinance under which the death penalty could be awarded to those convicted of raping girls below 12 years of age, amid a nationwide outrage over cases of sexual assault and murder of minors in Kathua + and Surat + and the rape of a teenager in Unnao + .
Modi, however, called upon the people to create an atmosphere for the safety of daughters.

“Families will have to enhance the honour and respect of daughters. Families should also make their sons more responsible,” he said while addressing the National Panchayati Raj Sammelan at Ramnagar in the tribal-dominated Mandla district.

“In this way, the safety of daughters would not be a difficult task. We have to launch a social movement in this direction,” he said.

Cine Music Round Up

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Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) Distributed Royalty Worth Rs. 13 Crores

The Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) recently distributed music royalty worth Rs. 13 Crores in 1 day amongst the Bollywood music composers & The lyricists.

Javed Akhtar, the Chairman of Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS) especially arrived to distribute Rs. 13 Crores received for TV synchronization between the entire author & the composer members at The Club, Andheri (W) Mumbai.

Rs.10,000 was distributed to the authors & the composers having 10 or less than 10 works registered with Indian performing Rights Society (IPRS) and the balance royalty was distributed equally to all the remaining authors & the composers which was Rs. 53,000.

This TV Synchronization royalty was paid by PPL on behalf of Saregama, Sony Music, Tips, Universal Music, Venus & Aditya Music.

On this eve Rakesh Nigam, the CEO of the Indian Performing rights Society (IPRS) averred, “We are happy to distribute the royalty cheques to all the authors & the composers of our music society. After all it’s all hard work & effort put in by them”.

Raju Singh, Sudhakar Sharma, Shravan Rathod, Harmeet, A M Turaaz, Prashant Ingole, Jatin Pandit, Sanjeev Darshan, Dilip Sen – Sameer Sen, Shibani Kashyap and many,, many more came to collect their royalty cheques.

The entire fraternity of the Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) thanked Javed Akhtar for his hard work & effort put in by him.

Chamundeshwari and Shikharipura are located at a distance of 304.2 Kilometers

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Chamundeshwari and Shikharipura are located at a distance of 304.2 kilometres. Both are high profile constituencies considering the battles here are being fought by Siddaramaiah and B S Yeddyurappa, the chief ministerial candidates of the Congress and BJP respectively.

There is a stark difference in the campaigns of Siddaramaiah who is looking to retain power and B S Yeddyurappa who is waiting to seize it. While Siddaramaiah is being made to sweat it out at Chamundeshwari, for Yeddyurappa it appears to be a walk over at Shikharipura.

Siddaramaiah is up against the formidable G T Deve Gowda of the JD(S) who is a friend turned foe. The Congress which is hoping to win the election on the Siddaramaiah factor did sense trouble in the CM’s bastion following which it decided to hand him another ticket from Badami.

Siddaramaiah’s troubles do not just begin and end with G T Deve Gowda. His former friends, V Srinivas Prasad and H Vishwanath are also campaigning against him making the fight even tougher. While Prasad has joined the BJP, Vishwanath is now with the JD(S). In all previous poll, these leaders stood together and were able to ensure that Siddaramaiah conquered Chamundeshwari 5 out of the 7 times that he contested.
Yeddyurappa, on the other hand, has an easy outing at Shikharipur. In 2013 when he had formed the KJP he had several foes, but he managed to win the polls. For instance, Mahalingappa who had beaten Yeddyurappa in 1999 is now his poll manager. Further, K Shekarappa who has challenged Yeddyurappa in three elections is now campaigning for him. Looking at the Congress candidate from Shikharipura, it is clear that Yeddyurappa will have a cake walk from this constituency. A confident Yeddyurappa had even said that he will win by a good 30,000 votes even if he does not campaign. Karnataka elections: Yogi Adityanath to address 35 rallies from May 3 Congress replaces Ambareesh with Ganiga Ravikumar in Mandya Karnataka Elections 2018:
BJP releases 5th list of 8 candidates Featured Posts The selection of the Congress candidate had taken a lot within the party by surprise. The Congress picked G B Malatesh, a block Congress president and municipality member. While this has made the battle easier for Yeddyurappa, analysts say that this is not the only factor that would ensure a win for the BJP leader. Yeddyurappa has over the years nurtured the constituency. The roads in the constituency are an example of this. Back in 2008 during a campaign trail, we were welcomed to one lane road. No two vehicles could pass by each other unless one went off the road. During our next visit to the constituency in 2009, the entire scenario had changed. It was the 2009 Lok Sabha election campaign and by then Yeddyurappa had become Chief Minister of Karnataka. The roads were wide and the constituency had a brand new feel to it.

‘Congress hand stained with Blood of Muslims’, says Salman Khurshid

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Former Union minister Salman Khurshid has said that his party does have blood on its hands and that people should learn from that mistake.

Pushed to the wall with a point-blank query from an Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) student at a programme as to how the Congress will wash off the blood stains of Muslims on its hands, he said, “It is a political question. There is blood on our hands. I am also a part of the Congress so let me say it, we have blood on our hands. Is this why you are trying to tell us that if someone attacks you, we must not come forward to protect you?”

“I am telling you. We are ready to show the blood on our hands so that you realise that you too must not get blood on your hands. If you attack them, you are the ones who would get stains on your hands,” he said at an AMU event on Sunday. “Learn something from our past. Learn from our history and don’t create such situations for yourself where if you come back to Aligarh Muslim University after 10 years, you find no one like yourself putting out questions,” he said.

The student had asked, “The first amendment was in 1948. Then there was Presidential order in 1950… after that Hasanpura, Maliana, Muzaffarnagar and there is a long list of riots under the Congress regime. Then there was the opening of the gates of Babri Masjid, placing idols inside and then the demolition of Babri Masjid while the Congress was in power at the Centre. Congress has Muslims’ blood on its hands. With what words will you wash them off?”. Later, talking to media post his remark, Khurshid said that he was defending the Congress party. Fear of losing social status drove US voters to elect Trump in 2016 election, finds study Karnataka elections: Yogi Adityanath to address 35 rallies from May 3 Delhi: 12-year-old girl raped by a minor in Ghazipur Featured Posts He said, “I am not a representative of the Congress party, I am the Congress party. I was defending Congress party. What I said I will continue to say, I made the statement as a human being.” The former Union minister was the chief guest at the annual function of BR Ambedkar Hall of the AMU.

Randeep Surjewala says That ‘Modi Govt ‘benefactor, protector, defender’ of Bellary Gang,

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New Delhi : Presidential Candidate Meira Kumar and Congress office bearer Surjewala address a press conference in New Delhi on Tuesday. PTI Photo by Shirish Shete(PTI6_27_2017_000074B)


Congress leader Randeep Surjewala launched a scathing attack against Narendra Modi government on Tuesday for fielding mining baron Reddy brothers and their associates in the Karnataka assembly elections.
In a press conference held at KPCC office in Bengaluru, Surjewala alleged “Modi Govt has now become the ‘benefactor, protector, defender’ of the ‘Bellary Gang’ responsible for denuding Kannadigas of their rich natural resources through a ‘Puppet CBI'”.
“Why is Modi Government protecting scamsters involved in Rs 35,000 Cr ‘Illegal Iron-Ore Mining Scam’ by shutting down CBI cases, one after the other, despite the scathing Lokayukta Report based on comprehensive evidence, both documentary & pictorial?”, Surjewala asked. He further said that Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and BJP President, Shri Amit Shah have gone out of the way to given 8 BJP tickets to Reddy Brothers and Associates in the Karnataka elections. He sought explanation from PM Modi and party chief Amit Shah for giving tickets to 8 people allegedly responslibe for ‘Loot of Public Money’ & ‘Plundering of Natural Resources’

Instead Caste and Religious Divisions, Our Democratic Journey Reflects Silent Revolution

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As the Indian Republic turns 70, Tufail Ahmad begins a journey through the country to examine the working of democracy at the grassroots level. Inspired by the French author Alexis de Tocqueville, who toured America and wrote Democracy in America, the author — a former BBC journalist and now senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute — will examine how sociological realities of India and the promise of democracy interact with each other in shaping the lives of the Indian citizen. This report is the sixth in a series called “Democracy in India”.

Ajmer: On this trip to examine the workings of democracy in India, I met three senior citizens who are in their 70s-80s: Ram Bhuwan Singh Kushwah in Bhopal, Suryadev Bareth of Kishangarh-Bas near Alwar in Mewat region and Om Prakash Sharma in Ajmer. All of them have witnessed the inter-generational journey of democracy in India.

Kushwah has forty years of experience in journalism and was part of the anti-Emergency struggle. Bareth is a highly learned person, was awarded Padam Shri in 1971 and has served as pradhan (panchayat head). Professor Sharma has taught political science for three decades at the DAV College in Ajmer.

Since all three are well placed by the factor of their experience and age to comment on India’s democratic journey, I asked them to comment on what distinguishes the early decades of our democracy from the recent decades. The first change seems to be the political parties opening wings in the name of minorities, Scheduled Castes & Tribes, and later women and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

Representational image. ReutersRepresentational image. Reuters
Kushwah says that in the first few decades since the Constitution came into force in 1950, there were no wings in political parties, but by the 1970s, non-Congress parties began forming morchas (fronts) in the name of caste and religion.

Kushwah, now associated with the Swami Vivekananda Kendra, recalls that in the 1970s when the Jan Sangh formed caste-based morchas, its members opposed this move, but today even the BJP, the successor to Jan Sangh, has established such morchas as a permanent part of the party structure.

In reaction to the Jan Sangh, Congress too established SC/ST and minority wings, he says, adding that before this, such caste-based and religion-based “cells” used to exist only in the apparatus of government. It means that caste and minority, which were part of a constitutional mechanism to alleviate the backwardness of these marginalised communities, have spread from government institutions into the political culture of Indian democracy, and further into society.

Consequently, with the march of democracy in India, we are also witnessing the growing role of caste and religion in causing social fissures in our society. This might also be due to the fact that democracy is empowering certain marginalised communities while disempowering communities which have traditionally held a grip on power. Caste is a good example to explain this.

The 2 April Bharat Bandh organised by Dalit communities was met with a rival bandh on 10 April called by the upper, so-called general castes who demanded an end to the provision of reservation in jobs and legislatures. In this entire process, it is forgotten that caste has been effectively a system of reservation in Indian society for thousands of years. Nothing has changed this system, not even the quota offered under constitutional provisions.

Professor Sharma observes that caste was not a factor during the 1950s and 1960s, but it has entered our political system now. “Jativad (casteism) was started by Charan Singh from Uttar Pradesh,” he says, adding that it acquired deeper roots in Indian polity when VP Singh decided to implement the Mandal Commission report on the reservation for OBCs.

Sharma insists that while some groupism existed involving socialists and communists in our politics in the early decades of democracy, casteism did not. The third part of this series on the workings of democracy examined the turbulent cyclical relationship between caste and politics in India.

About the role of religion which divided India in 1947, Sharma notes that while the politics of religion was fostered by Muslim leaders, it was also used by Sikh leaders like Master Tara Singh who had initially demanded a separate country for Sikhs and later limited this demand for a province.

It is also the case that the Congress under Jawaharlal Nehru had been seeking the help of Imam Bukhari of Delhi’s Jama Masjid right from the 1950s to garner Muslim votes. So, current political parties wooing Islamic clerics for votes may not be something new to Indian democracy.

While the Congress held dominance over the Indian democratic system in early decades, several new political parties emerged subsequently. With the birth of regional parties in different states such as Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the nature of Indian polity altered and a “multi-party system” began emerging.

Suryadev Bareth, former Pradhan of Kishangarh-Bas in Alwar district. Firstpost/Tufail AhmadSuryadev Bareth, former Pradhan of Kishangarh-Bas in Alwar district. Firstpost/Tufail Ahmad
“As the new parties came up, they began thinking of their own interests,” Sharma says, adding: “In the 1950s and 1960s, no one would even think so much of vote-banks as we think of now.” The focus of political parties subsequently turned, he says, to building and entrenching their long-term vote-banks.

Therefore, Indian democracy began changing fundamentally in the following respects: caste became a key factor in our politics; the use of religion in our politics continued despite the bloody experience of the partition; the proliferation of political parties led to the creation of vote-banks.

Suryadev Bareth is an optimistic person even in the face of worst criticism. He notes that political parties are in the process of Darwinian transformation. “Caste and religion are not something new. Parties are expressive of new realities,” he says, adding that India has made great strides given the fact the Islamic invasions and the British rule had created gaps between the rulers and the ruled.

“In the 1950s and 1960s, power was concentrated at the top, but with the march of democracy there is a big devolution of power to districts and villages,” Bareth says. He cites some achievements during past 70 years of Indian democracy: the gradual erosion of caste from social, if not political, life; spread of women’s education across India, independence of the judiciary, positive role of the Election Commission of India, and legislative measures such as the Right to Information Act and the Panchayati Raj system introduced by the 73rd Amendment. He is right.

As per the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, there are 2,48,752 elected councils at the village level, 6,307 at the intermediate level and 601 at the district level. There are 19 states which provide for 50 percent reservation of seats to women in Panchayati Raj institutions. Even though the elected women sarpanches are mostly represented by their husbands and sons in meetings, they are also learning along the way.

In 2016, out of 29,11,961 elected representatives, at least 13.45 lakhs were women. This might be a silent revolution taking place in India. Its fruits will be seen in next few decades as more educated women take charge of village councils.

As I took his leave, I asked Bareth: Should the new generation of Indians worry about the use of caste, religion and widespread corruption in Indian democracy? Bareth writes Urdu ghazals. He said he once met a poet in the town of Tonk in Rajasthan and asked him, why is it that Tonk produces many Urdu poets?

He got a reply: “Hamein daad dena aata hai (We the people of Tonk know how to praise poets).” He told me: “Logon ka savbhav hai ninda karna (people’s character is to criticise). We should learn to appreciate our achievements.”

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