France Wins Honours, Croatia Wins Hearts
P Chidambram, in his column for the Indian Express, applauds Croaia’s stunning performance in the FIFA Word Cup and also in other parameters that “matter to people.” Chidambram tabulates how a country as small in size as Croatia measures up in comparison with the big and mighty France, and suggests how India can take a leaf out of Croatia’s book. He stresses on the importance of certain fundamental principles such as “decentralisation” and sharing of financial resources between the centre and the state.
The country was ravaged by war during 1991-1995, but its people have lifted themselves up by the bootstraps. A look at the data will show that Croatia is highly globalised. It receives foreign direct investment that is 4 per cent of its GDP (or USD 500 per person). Croatians live long, are healthy, have few children, are secure within their borders, and not too worried about the fact that they are as small country that doesn’t make the wrong headlines every day.
Jhappi is Smart TV, Now Rahul Must Get Real
In her column for The Times of India, Sagarika Ghose analyses the politics of Rahul Gandhi’s “jaadoo ki jhappi.” Although she lauds Rahul Gandhi for this smart political move: doing “a Narendra Modi on Narendra Modi,” she observes how he still is not a rugged politician in the “Mamata-Mulayam” mould. Ghose reflects on RaGa’s history of missing opportunities, and wonders aloud if he is ready yet for the political challenges that 2019 is certain to bring.
With the BJP determined to make 2019 a presidential Rahul vs Modi contest, he’s still not shown he’s up to the challenge of being taken seriously in politics. Yet he’s made a beginning. The Speaker may have frowned on it, but the jhappi and wink moment revealed that Rahul Gandhi has at last woken up to the demands of reality TV politics and the virtues of being a tad wicked on camera. After all, in our times it’s the badly behaved rule-breaker who tends to be more admired than the docile rule-follower. The camera is notoriously fickle though. While it gets initially turned on by drama, it also gets easily bored without real accomplishment. So Rahul now faces a new challenge: After the jhappi, what?
Back to Vote Banks
“While listening to the debate in the Lok Sabha last week, what startled me was that the issues raised sounded so similar to the vote of confidence that Atal Bihari Vajpayee lost nearly 20 years ago,” writes Tavleen Singh in her column for the Indian Express. Singh discusses how both the BJP and the Congress have let the Muslims of the country down, even though the “most powerful vote bank has always been the Muslims.” She writes about how the country desperately needs a political party that is seriously interested in India’s real problems.
The mighty Congress party is no more than a private limited company with a board of directors whose only reason to be in public life is that their Mummy or Daddy handed their constituencies to them. We have the BJP that is increasingly showing itself to be a party that represents the interests only of upper-caste Hindus. And, then we have our regional parties that are nearly all private limited companies or casteist conglomerates that do not even aspire to give us a grander vision for India.
Their Own Persons
In his piece for The Telegraph, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, writes about how three stalwarts of the National Democratic Alliance are missed in the political discourse today. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, George Fernandes and Jaswant Singh, he writes, were “‘their own persons’ with an inner monitor of their own, and who are now, perforce, silent and seemingly without violation which is very sad.” Gopalkrishna Gandhi looks back at a time when self respect superseded all else, and gagging was not a common activity.
I want them to revert to some form of acuity, some measure of articulateness, for the reason that our country, our politics, our public life need them, need persons like them. Political civility needs them, decency needs them. And because I believe they, being the kind of persons they are, have something to say, something very specific and strong to say, about another kind of wordlessness, speechlessness, helplessness that we see around us today. And which is not physical, but psychological.
BJP Beware! Don’t take EVs (Enlightened Voters) Lightly
In his opinion piece for The Times of India, Chetan Bhagat writes about how the Bharatiya Janata Party may just be taking the Enlightened Voters - or EVs - lightly, and warns them against doing so. Bhagat points out that the Enlightened voters are the same people who voted for BJP and cheered for Prime Minister Modi in 2014 because they felt “he would change India and deserved a chance.” He says that the fact that the Hindutva card is being played out more brazenly than before also suggests that the party is underestimating the impact of the EVs.
When you promise ‘achhe din’, you essentially promise that all problems will go away. Of course, such expectation is almost impossible to meet. But even at a practical level, there have been disappointments. The economy, by and large, is chugging at the same pace as before. Regulations have only increased. The key driving assumption — control businesses with a stick — is not too different from how it was half a decade ago. The key game-changing policies of the government did not get the economy roaring. Demonetisation had leakages, and many experts feel GST is too high and has too many bands to work well. Though identity politics dominates India, fact is the economy does matter.
An Evening in Pinjore Gardens
In her piece for The Hindu, Rana Safvi takes you on a stroll of the Pinjore Gardens. She discusses the beauty of the gardens, insecurities of the rajas from neighbouring hills, ancient architecture and also an ancient fear of goitre. She also tells you a little bit about Fidai Khan Koka - Aurangzeb’s foster brother who loved the hills and was quite an artist himself.
The best time to visit the gardens is in the evening. As I entered the grand gateway, I recalled the descriptions of the Red Fort gardens that I had read in Asar-us-Sanadid by Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan. A single water channel runs through the entire garden, falling down the chute at each level, creating mists. This chute, called chini-khana, has niches in which camphor lamps used to burn at night and bouquets of fragrant flowers were kept during the day. Today they are lit up electrically.”
From Russia, With Love: How Putin is Rebranding his Nation
In her opinion piece for the Times of India, Shobhaa De talks about how Putin has been determinedly working towards making Russia look shiny, suave and invincible. She writes about how Putin has “exploited the World Cup to the fullest, strategically and subliminally,” and while the real picture may be starkly distinct from what Moscow looked like during the World Cup, it is easy to miss it.
When the American Grizzly Bear got into bed with the Siberian Tiger, political watchers held their breath. Regardless of how this peculiar ‘bromance’ pans out down the line, we know who is calling the shots as of now. But first, a perspective: Between strongman Putin and the average Russian, there is little love lost. Chatting with taxi drivers, serving staff in posh restaurants and the very, very few citizens who speak even a smattering of English, it is apparent Putin is no folk hero. Driving past a grand building ironically dubbed the ‘White House’ by locals, I asked the cabbie if it was Putin’s official residence. The man laughed, “Nobody knows where Putin actually stays. It could be in Sochi… or just outside Moscow!
Tales Of Grit and Determination
Ira Pande, in her piece for Tribune, discusses what Croatia’s performance in the FIFA World Cup, the remarkable way in which a local football team in Thailand was rescued from a cave, and the way Hima Das battled all odds to win a historic gold tell us. She talks about the power of relentlessness and how talent and grit truly form a deadly blend. She also, however, goes on to request “soccer moms and helicopter parents” to let their children find their own way in life.
In case of the football players, particularly the French team, it tell us that if you have talent and grit, nothing can stop you from storming into big time action. There were inspiring stories of pain and deprivation behind almost all the non-white players in every European team. Many were immigrants who grew up in an alien country, often victims of racial abuse and grinding poverty but they had hunger in their bellies that gave them the determination to reach the top.
Airing Grievances: Keep the Chain of Command Intact
In his column for Tribune, Brigadier Indrajeet Gakhal (retd) criticises Army Chief General Bipin Rawat’s usage of WhatsApp to communicate with jawans. He shares his own personal experiences and stresses on how “the existing grievance redressal system has worked well for three odd decades.” Brigadier Gakhal opines that this new way of reaching out via WhatsApp has fanned “an anti-officer sentiment.”
The crux is that the aggrieved jawan throw his Section NCO and Platoon Havildar approached the Platoon Commander who in turn reported to the senior JCO and to me. The chain of grievance redressal follows the chain of command. At no stage, Sepoy Sher Singh needed to jump the line to go directly to the Company Commander or the Commanding Officer.
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Rahul Gandhi’s CWC Reshuffle Shows Both Bravado & Restraint
In Modi’s India, Swami Agnivesh & His Ilk Are a ‘Saffron Minority’
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