Passionate About India

AAP came up like no party had earlier! And is now on its way down as fast. But, has AAP lost its entire support base? Not at all! The poorer sections of the society, who are relatively less on education and understanding, are still firmly with them. AAP's non-stop claim about being an honest party has caught the fancy of these sections. And rightly so. This is a claim that is almost true. There are stray cases where people with a criminal background have gotten tickets; but by and large, I still believe AAP's intent is to remain non-corrupt. Compared to all others, they are the true "pavitra ganga jal" in this department. The lesser educated classes don't understand governance, vision, development, growth, stability and negatives of fascism; but they do understand honesty. It's a simple non-complicated term. These classes are seeing social workers, who have been tirelessly working for them, getting tickets; people from their own fraternity getting tickets; ...

Do not worry, I am a student of economics and I do not buy Modi’s highly publicized theories of development. Nor am I being paid by him, as the gaumless AAP supporters bombing my Facebook page doltishly claim, as the popularity of AAP plummets to new lows with each new immature statement and puerile act from Kejriwal (the latest being that he will jail all those media people who write against him)! But it’s very clear to me that the nation has been fooled for far too long by incapable leaders and it’s definitely time for us for once to give a chance for the first time ever in our history to a real leader. Before I speak further, let me clarify a few things. Gujarat is a high growth state but that doesn’t mean that this is due to a Modi miracle alone. Gujarat has always been a high growth state and the same pace has been retained by Modi, more or less. In fact, in the last one decade, in terms of growth, Maharashtra has been better off; in terms of human development, Kerala has been fa...

I voted for him during the Delhi elections, but I had also mentioned then that for the general elections, one must vote for Modi. At that point of time, I had believed that Arvind Kejriwal was not (yet) mature enough to be considered for central leadership. Now, I am convinced he is not even mature enough for the next Delhi assembly elections. Here are a dozen reasons why you should not vote for Arvind Kejriwal: Reason #1:Anna Hazare says in his latest interview to TSI that “obsession to become Prime Minister has gone into Arvind Kejriwal’s head”. That’s exactly why we should not vote for Arvind Kejriwal. Having the aim to become the PM is nothing wrong. But the change agent, who the country is looking out for right now, should think of doing only the right things without compromising on issues. Not an infatuated man who is risibly obsessed with becoming the Prime Minister. Arvind could not even stay away from his esurient greed to become the CM of Delhi and took aquisitive support fr...

While Arvind Kejriwal’s stubborn defence of Somnath Bharti’s illegal and racist attempts at vigilante justice against African women and Kumar Vishwas’ racist comment on nurses of Kerala got written about, Arvind’s support for Khap panchayats (labelled as the Taliban of India by women’s right activists) got sidelined. Yes, people are writing about how in his politics, women’s issues have been sidelined. But it is his support for Khap’s dictats – which are shocking and shameful and range from banning women from wearing Western clothes and using mobile phones to ordering killing of young couples – that has hit women’s groups (especially those who want Khap panchayats dismantled) the most. In India, politics has forever been about the vote bank. That means, politics has always been aimed at helping those who are having some problem with the normal course of law and procedures. Politicians, by giving promises to help such people, by circumventing the law and bringing new laws/policies, hav...

There is no doubt that BJP is the party to go for in the upcoming elections. No party has such a variety of support from intellectuals as the BJP has. No intellectual worth his mettle is supporting Congress, and barring a few slogan-mongers, no one is interested in AAP either. Definitely, not a single mainstream intellectual has any feelings for AAP. And truthfully, why not? While Congress has a few, very well spoken people (in English, I should add), BJP has the pick of the intellectuals, and to go with it, well spoken leaders too. Yes, many of them may be far better orators in Hindi, but that is the language that matters in this country! My articles are very often the result of some recent book I may have read. Likewise, today’s editorial is influenced by Nitin Gadkari’s India Aspires – written by Tuhin A Sinha. While Modi is the lion of the party on the roll and nothing much needs to be said on him, it is Gadkari who has never failed to impress me with his social vision, combin...

On the 13th of January, 2014, our current Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone for one of India’s largest nuclear power plants in Haryana amidst protests from various groups. Had logic and public opinion been something that our Prime Minister or his government respected, then AAP perhaps would not have been there in the first place. But these have not been his forte; as is well known, he neither uses his mouth (the absolute lack of communication from him), nor his ears (the disregard for public opinion). Or perhaps he has sold his soul so massively to Western interests that his skin has become far too thick for anything to affect him, including the imminent end of his official tenure. I have been a diehard anti-nuclear energy man from day one, and wouldn’t spend too many words delving into the scary possibilities of a Japan-like natural disaster and its possible effects. But the fact is, nuclear plants can be most fragile and such incidents can have disastrous cons...