1. Nitish Kumar’s Gambit: Temple Fund, 2 EBCs Added to SC/ST list
As the Bihar assembly polls approach, it seems Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is pulling all strings to equalise PM Modi’s special package and win back the electorate. The latest, according to The Indian Express, is a dedicated temple fund and the inclusion of two Extreme Backward Castes into the SC/ST list.
In the battle of poll sops between the Centre and the state, the temple fencing fund is being seen an another deft move by the Nitish Kumar government.
“Just as Nitish had succeeded in sending a message to Muslims with the government earmarking funds for fencing of cemeteries, the CM has deftly tried to reach out to the majority Hindus by creating a temple fencing fund,” said a senior JD(U) leader.
Read the full report here.
2. Secret Trips to West Asia: Doval’s Visits Seek to Balance Ties With Israel and Iran
During a secret visit to Israel, The Telegraph reports, India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval went to their biggest nuclear facility. While in Iran, Doval enquired about the possibility of the Indian Navy using the Chabahar port.
His trips to Israel and Iran had a different context. Israel, like India and Pakistan, is a known nuclear power that is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Unlike India, though, Israel has not separated its civilian and military nuclear facilities — and it’s rare for a country to take a visiting national security adviser to a closely guarded strategic asset like the Negev nuclear facility near Dimona, 35 km off the Dead Sea.
Read the full article here.
3. Why Red Corner Notice Against Lalit Modi, Interpol Asks Enforcement
According to sources familiar with the development, the ED has submitted all the documents to Interpol. A senior officer, who has dealt with Interpol, said, “Interpol has no locus standi in asking any sovereign nation for details of investigation once the nodal agency, in our case the CBI, submits requests for issue of a Red Corner Notice. Interpol is a mere facilitating agency. It is also unheard of that Interpol gives an opportunity for submission to someone who is a subject of RCN.”
Read the full article here.
4. Rahul’s Elevation May be Postponed
Senior Congress members tell The Hindu that the party is considering postponing the elevation of Rahul Gandhi to the post of party President, yet again. The decision is likely to come after the assembly polls in Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. The reason given, once again, was that Rahul is not yet ready.
In the past 15 months since the BJP came to power, though the Modi government has suffered some reverses — the defeat in the Delhi Assembly polls and its failure to get through key economic reforms-related legislation — the Congress has not shown signs of making any recovery.
Read the full article here.
5. One Year Later, High and Dry, and Angry in Srinagar
In a column for The Indian Express, Tavleen Singh writes about the situation in Jammu & Kashmir, a year after the floods that took everything away from the people of Srinagar.
They admitted, when pressed, that they were angry about having to rebuild their shattered lives without any help from the government but at least now knew for sure that “nothing had changed” in the age of Narendra Modi, and that this disappointed them almost as much as the absence of flood relief.
Read the full piece here.
6. Gagging Free Speech: CM Devendra Fadnavis Must Step in to Prevent Draconian Interpretation of Sedition Law
The current BJP-Shiv Sena government has now issued a circular which says any criticism which brings a government into disrepute can be deemed seditious. Moreover, a Marathi translation of the circular says criticism may also be treated as seditious if it is against a representative of the government.
Read the full Times of India editorial here.
7. Patidars and Muslims: Reservations & the State
Let us ignore the many ironies in the Prime Minister’s little homily and try a thought experiment instead. Imagine a young Muslim rabble-rouser doing the things Hardik Patel has done to press for Muslim reservations. Visualise him posing for photographs shouldering a shotgun, or sprawled on the bonnet of a car with a snub nosed pistol, his supporters brandishing swords. Now think of him inciting a crowd of half a million Muslims in Surat and that crowd turning violent. How do you think the Gujarat government or the Central government would have reacted? How likely is it that the prime minister would content himself with emollient talk of non-violence and peace? Not very.
Read the full opinion piece written by Mukul Kesavan in The Telegraph here.
8. Why Do Monuments Matter?
Like their ransacking of the Mosul museum and the sites of Nineveh this spring, and the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001, the stated goal of such destruction is to eradicate idolatry seen as blasphemous to a particular religious perspective. But the real aim is to grab attention and destroy something that the global community deems valuable — because they can.
Read the full piece here.
9. The Gag on Greenpeace
The action taken under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) — which many NGOs say is a bad application of a poorly drafted piece of legislation — means Greenpeace will not be able to receive any foreign donations. The move has made other NGOs vulnerable too; they face a tough choice, of either complying with the government’s line, or fading out. The media have reported that the invoking of the provisions of the Act followed certain actions by Greenpeace that were deemed inimical to the economic interests of the state.
Read the full piece here.