Archives for December 2020

English Press Release and Photograph of Union Minister, S Jaishankar, launches veteran journalist Prem Prakash’s book “Reporting India: My Seventy-Year Journey as a Journalist” at Kitaab event.

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Union External Affairs Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, releasing veteran journalist Prem Prakash’s book “Reporting India” at Kitaab with author Prem Prakash, Aakriti Periwal of PKF and panelists Sushant Sareen, Sheela Bhatt, Venkat Narayan.

Union Minister, S Jaishankar, launches veteran journalist Prem Prakash’s book “Reporting India: My Seventy-Year Journey as a Journalist” at Kitaab event

21 December 2020, Kolkata/New Delhi: Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs, Government of India, launched veteran journalist and media entrepreneur Prem Prakash’s book “Reporting India: My Seventy-Year Journey as a Journalist” at Kitaab online book launch event organized by Prabha Khaitan Foundation of Kolkata in association with Penguin India. Eminent litterateurs, scholars, book lovers, students and journalists from across the country joined the virtual event for an engaging hour-long session with the author Prem Prakash; panelists Sheela Bhatt and Sushant Sareen and Ms Aakriti Periwal of PKF introducing the session and Venkat Narayan made the concluding remarks.

Reflecting on seven decades of journalistic work by Prem Prakash, Minister of External Affairs, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, said, “Prem Prakash’s book in reality is a celebration of his life. He has been there and done that and shaped our recollection of events and the image of India. He has always been at his detached best. Prem, a great recorder of events and history, has always been at the right place at the right time. His book is an engrossing flow which the young generation of today, less conversant of that past era, must read. India has gained enormously from his work.”

“The Chini Hindi bhai bhai slogan was nonsense. India’s views towards the Chinese in the past can be described as a kind of romanticism. We gave up everything on Tibet while the Chinese asserted its sovereignty and went on to capture Tibet,” said Prem Prakash who set up Indian news agency Asian News Network (ANI) in 1971 to provide syndicated multi-media newsfeed to Indian and foreign media houses. ANI was also the first news agency to syndicate video news.

The author, who, as a journalist, had first hand witnessed the pitiable condition of ill-equipped Indian Army mauled by the Chinese during the 1962 China-India border war, says in his recent book that Nehru felt personally responsible for the debacle as he had ignored the modernisation of India’s armed forces at the outset of his term in office. Nehru, who believed that war could never be a tool for furthering diplomatic ends, found his peacenik worldview torn asunder by an aggressive China. He did try to make amends to revive and re-equip the Indian armed forces during the 20 months he lived after the India-China war.

Reminiscing on what Afghanistan used to be and its future, Prem Prakash said, “Afghanistan is a tragic case. In many respects Afghanistan used to be ahead of India before it became a victim of the Cold War. The bogey of “Islam in danger” was used to create Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan. India is a big country and Afghanistan needs our help and we must make sure we do help them. We must ask – Why Chabahar port is taking so long to become functional? It is in India’s interest to bring Afghanistan back to what it used to be in the happy days. The Taliban took them back to the stone age.”

On the quality of today’s journalism Mr Prakash said, “There are many huge organizations now. For heaven’s sake tell your reporters to go to the field and report. Another fact is that the reporters are opinionated which isn’t good. Young journalists should read a lot, go to the locations and report facts.”

Prem Prakash is among the few journalists who interviewed all the prime ministers of India in his illustrious career spanning over seven decades. He had reported the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 from inside Bangladesh risking his life. He has been at the frontline reporting some of the historic events like liberation of Goa, India-China border war, Indo-Pak wars, Bhopal gas tragedy, attack on Rajiv Gandhi in Colombo and so on as a photographer, reporter and cameraman. He has witnessed natural calamities and insurgencies which he has penned in his book.

“We still see the world and India from a western correspondent’s view. I fail to understand why Indian media houses, which make huge profits, fail to depute correspondents in foreign countries and present news from an Indian perspective.

Kitaab is an initiative of Kolkata-based organization Prabha Khaitan Foundation which provides a forum for book launches by connecting intellectuals, book lovers and litterateurs with authors. Eminent authors like Shashi Tharoor, Vikram Sampath, Salman Khurshid, Kunal Basu, Vir Sanghvi, Vikas Jha, Luke Coutinho and others have earlier had book launching sessions at Kitaab.

NEW DELHI: The sudden lockdown imposition resulted in unprecedented disruptions, including stoppage of intra and inter-state movement of people, goods, the shutdown of factories, hotels, eateries, tourism etc and other economic activities with severe social and economic fallouts, a Parliamentary standing committee on Home Affairs has said in a report on Covid-19 situation.

The committee has recommended the formation of a national plan under the NDMA, 2005 and Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 for co-ordination between the Centre, states & UTs for quick response to such a crisis in future.  

The panel noted that the NDMA is meant for handling disasters and not for handling the pandemic/epidemic which happens in decades and even once in a century.

“The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, is outdated as it was framed in the colonial-era and needs revisiting, updation and amendment,” it said. Rajya Sabha MP Anand Sharma, who led the panel, stated that the committee “would ensure efficacious implementation of all decisions to contain pandemics and equitable/timely distribution of relief at district and sub-divisional levels to the intended beneficiaries in urban and rural areas.”

In the report submitted to Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu through video conferencing on “Management of COVID-19 pandemic and related issues”, the panel examined the various aspects of the seriousness of the situation arising out of the pandemic.

The panel recommended the government to prepare a national database of migrant workers at the earliest, observing that the migrants are the backbone of the industrial sector, but due to the lockdown many migrant workers lost their jobs. 

It appreciated the government’s efforts to extend relief measures to the vulnerable sections but added that the absence of a national database, it is difficult to extend the relief measures to the intended beneficiaries. 

KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Monday hit out at the BJP-led government at the Centre saying it is only bent on dividing the country and has cancelled public holidays on festivals like Christmas.

Inaugurating Christmas festival at Allen Park in the city’s downtown Park Street area, the TMC supremo condemned the “politics of hatred” pursued by the Narendra Modi government.

“Some people can only divide the country. The BJP government has cancelled the public holiday on Christmas after coming to power. Why did they do so? Don’t they have any regard for the sentiments of the Christian community?” Banerjee said lashing out at the saffron party.

Christmas is now a regional holiday.

Stating that Christmas is a festival for all, Banerjee said “In West Bengal we celebrate X mas, Durga Puja and Eid with equal gusto.”

Continuing her attack against BJP, she said “We all love and respect our Constitution but the government in Delhi has no respect for constitutional norms and values.”

Without naming BJP, Banerjee charged the saffron party of spreading “a garbage of lies” about the state’s development.

“Why are you speaking garbage of lies to people. Tell the truth. Acknowledge the fact that we (West Bengal) stand first in MSME sector. We are front runners in various social sectors. Our Kanyashree and Sabooj Sathi schemes have earned universal acclaim,” she said.

Kanyashree Prakalpa is an initiative taken by the West Bengal government to improve the life and status of girls by helping economically backward families with cash, while Sabooj Sathi is a scheme for providing bicycles to students.

“Some people coming from Delhi are jealous and they keep spreading falsehoods,” she said in an apparent reference to BJP national-level leaders flaying the state’s performance in several sectors including employment.

Unity is the strength of Bengal and the country, Banerjee said and gave a call for fostering bonds among communities on the occasion of Christmas.

Yadav made the remarks at a party meeting in Patna that saw him interacting with all the RJD candidates for the recently held assembly polls

PATNA: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Monday called upon party workers to brace for mid-term polls in Bihar, saying fresh elections could take place “any time, even in 2021”.

Yadav made the remarks at a party meeting in Patna that saw him interacting with all the RJD candidates for the recently held assembly polls, successful and otherwise, besides top office-bearers.

An RJD source said, “Tejashwi told party workers that there was no time for complacency since the government could fall and elections take place in 2021.”

Talking to reporters later, Yadav said, “I have indeed asked our workers to be ready for elections. It would not be surprising if fresh elections take place sooner than expected.”

In the assembly polls, which concluded last month, the RJD emerged as the single-largest party with 75 seats but the five-party Grand Alliance helmed by it fell short of achieving a majority.

The ruling NDA retained power, winning a slender majority.

JD(U) president Nitish Kumar returned as the chief minister though his party finished with a dismal tally of just over 40, while the BJP won 74.

Moreover, eight seats were won by the Hindustani Awam Morcha of former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and Vikassheel Insaan Party of minister Mukesh Sahni, both of whom were with the Grand Alliance till a few months ago.

Yadav is the second prominent politician from Bihar, after Lok Janshakti Party chief Chirag Paswan, to have predicted mid-term polls.

Paswan, whose party opened a front against the JD(U) and pulled out of the NDA ahead of the elections, had made a similar prediction soon after the results of the polls were declared.

His party could bag only one seat though it succeeded in badly hitting the JD(U).

Yadav, who had met his jailed father and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad at Ranchi recently, also said “stern action” would be taken against those who were found guilty of having worked against the party’s official candidates during elections “hoping that this would boost their own prospects in future”.

He also said that after Makar Sankranti he would hold a “Dhanyawad Yatra” (thanksgiving tour), covering all 38 districts of the state who “reposed their trust in us though the NDA retained power through deceit and subterfuge”.

The RJD leader has been alleging that results were tilted in favour of the NDA by pliant officials in districts, which witnessed close contests between candidates of the BJP- led coalition and the Grand Alliance.

Yadav has been underscoring the fact that the NDA had garnered just a little over 12,000 votes more than the Grand Alliance across the 243 assembly segments but this resulted in a difference of 25 between the respective tallies of the two coalitions.

Yadav also pointed towards recent incidents like the attack on the vehicle of a judicial officer in Nalanda district and charged “this shows it is maha jungle raj in Bihar”.

The epithet of “jungle raj” is often used by the RJD’s opponents to describe the alleged lawlessness that prevailed while the party was in power until its rout in 2005.

“The NDA is promising 80 lakh jobs in Bengal. They should first walk the talk on their promise of 19 lakh jobs here,” Yadav added.

It said the “BJP delegation” stated that the demands put forward by Anna Hazare are for the benefit of farmers and soon a solution will be found.

AHMEDNAGAR: Days after social activist Anna Hazare warned of resuming his hunger strike if his demands concerning farmers were not met by the central government, Maharashtra BJP leaders Haribhau Bagade and Bhagwat Karad, MP, met him on Monday in his hometown Ralegansiddhi in Ahmednagar district.

The BJP leaders requested Hazare not go on protest with his demands, a release from Anna Hazare’s office said.

It said the “BJP delegation” stated that the demands put forward by Anna Hazare are for the benefit of farmers and soon a solution will be found. They also said that looking at his age, he should not go on protest.

The release said that Hazare had written a letter to central government last week about pending demands related to farmers and threatened to protest for it.

It said that Hazare told BJP leaders that in 2018 and 2019, Anna Hazare was given written assurance by the central government about his demands related to farmers “but even after two years no such step had been taken to fulfil them”.

The release said the central government had said given assurance that it will give autonomous status to Krishi Mulya Aayog and will provide C2 + 50 per cent MSP according to Swaminathan panel recommendation to farmers “but same has not been fulfilled yet”.

“Anna Hazare also informed the BJP delegation that since his demands related to farmers have not been fulfilled he has also asked for permission at Ram Leela Maidan in Delhi for protest,” the release said.

It said the BJP delegation also handed over copies of three farm laws to Anna Hazare and assured him that these laws will be of benefit for farmers.

The release said the delegation assured Hazare that soon a meeting will be called by central leaders to discuss his demands related to farmers.

The meeting went on for about one hour at Anna’s hometown Ralegansiddhi in Ahmednagar district.