THE WORST HAS HAPPENED

  For last several months, being a student of history and associated with museum movement, I have been giving vent to my deep concerns on the recent vandalism in archaeological sites of West Asia due to ongoing war inspired by communal hatred. To this I have been posting my feelings in the blog. I had already drawn a very sorry picture of rampaging of aretfacts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. I had hinted that the axe was due to fall on another ancient city, Palmyra in Syria. I was afraid that the innumerable monuments and artefacts there were due to fall in jeopardy as the IS had captured it in last May. Unfortunately, the rampages have come true.
According to a leading English daily of Delhi dated June 23, 2015, the Islamic State group fighters have destroyed two ancient Muslim mausoleums in the historic Syrian city of Palmyra which was confirmed by the countrie’s director of antiquities. According to him, the IS jehadis blew up the tombs of Mohammed bin Ali, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammed’s cousin , and Nizar Abu Bahaaeddin, a religious figure from Palmyra. Bin Ali's burial place is located in a mountainous region in north of Palmyra in central Syria. Abu Bahaaeddin;s tomb, located very close to Palmyra's ancient ruins , is said to be five centuries old. The jehadis destroyed at least 100-200 years old 50 mausoleums. They do so because these structures are allegedly militating against their faith. It is reported that several ancient sites have been mined and in days to come many more historical monuments, which gained world heritage status for Palmyra, will lick the dust.
Like my earlier posts and other such pieces, wherein I gave expression to my feelings over these calculated iconoclastic rampages, I once again end here with the same heavyness without any ray of optimism.
  

ANOTHER SUPER EXPERIMENT IN BIHAR

Particularly since after 1960, Bihar has been a politically boiling cauldron. All sorts of experiments have been tried here and more and more appear to be in the offing. It has been the cradle of Lohia’s socialist movement as well as the historic Sampoorn Kranti of JP. The Janta umbrella raised  in 1977 under JP stewardship, in the following years, for its inbuilt contradictions, just frittered away and the subsequent periods showed the state politics stooping so low that Bihar started being castigated as a state of inert people. But this is just one side of the coin. The ingenuous people of the state, kept on giving adequate expression to their talents in other fields.
We understand that in metropolitan cities including Delhi, there are coaching centres for competitive examinations which charge heavily for preparing the aspirants to get through. It has emerged as a lucrative industry. Against this background, one Anand Kumar of Bihar started a unique coaching system called Super 30. He collected students from the lowest strata of society, offered them free boarding and lodging and gave personal attention to coach them. For last several years, the Super 30 has been scoring nearly 100% success. Anand kumar emerged as an icon and today is being invited by different universities in the world to deliver lecture on his success story.
It has inspired others too to draw inspiration. We know that Muslim society is lagging behind in the economic race as well as education. The situation is still worse so far as female education is concerned. Taking a cue from Alok, a young Muslim, named Rahmani, after his name recently launched Rahmani 30. Since he has the experience of association with Alok, his group has also started showing similar breathtaking results as this year out of 30, 27 have cracked IIT test. Rahmani knows the weak sides of his community and so rightly decided to concentrate on girls as his next step.
These are very incouraging trends. We can draw several healthy lessons. Firstly, instead of playing only politics, we should do some creative work in the field. Secondly, let us forget to blame the govt for every deficiency in the society. And finally, the self-help has no substitute.   

AK AT RECEIVING END

AArvind Kejriwal, the incumbent CM, Delhi started his political career in a circuitious way under the Anna umbrella. He had a two-pronged policy – firstly of proving that all the political parties were corrupt and secondly, if given the chance, he would usher in ‘sushasan’.  When he joined the electoral politics, he claimed that his candidates were washed in milk. When he took the oath of CM, he invited people to pay bribe if asked for but at the same time conduct a sting operation and for adequate punishment leave he matter to him.  

He managed some papers and one by one in public meetings called Salman Khurshid, Robert Badra, Nitin Gadkari and several others corrupt in toto. He showed papers telling that the NGO of Salman’s wife was indulging in corrupt practices. Only three days back, along with 48 NGOs, his deuty, Manish Sisodia’s NGO Kabir’s FCRA permission was withdrawn for not filing returns of funds received from foreign countries. The AAP movement’s main plank was Lokpal which he removed immediately after returning to power and the post is still vacant. At least three persons carried sting operation on AK himself which were shown on different national news channels without any action on any. Fouder leaders like Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav, Rajesh Garg, Binny etc who challenged his dictatorial decisions, were shown the exit door.

His law minister, Jitender Tomar resigned as he was charged with forged educational certificates. Another person, MLA from Cantt. is also charged with the same crime. AAP/MLA from Karolbagh AC, Vishesh Ravi is allegedly having an office in Rohini which prepares forged certificates. His previous law minister, Somnath Bharti had forced the cops in Malviya Nagar to arrest some foreigners, allegedly running sex rackets. On June 11, Lipika Mitra, the wife of same Bharti has complained of domestic violence including acute mental torture and demanded divorce with adequate alimony for herself and two issues.

If AK takes action in some of the above said incidents, his party will collapse. It appears that except agitations, he has not learnt  any administrative quality. A man assuring good governance does not tolerate any opposition. In a hurry, he distributed tickets to several undeserving elements and same mistake was committed while selecting ministers. The electorate of Delhi are bewildered and pondering if they commited a blunder at the hustings. Let him defend.        

HAWA HAWAI IN BIHAR POLITICS

                                

The Bihar assembly election is round the corner. It will decide the fate of the state for next five years. Being a man from that state, my interest in the local politics is genuine. Will it mark the return of ‘jungle raj’ ? Will somebody emerge as a leader to be truly called a ‘vikas purush’? Will the tired electorate lose interest and give a fractured mandate generating known political uncertainty ? Will at the last moment Lalu’s appeal in the SC be turned down ? Will the NDA, like the last parliamentary election turn the table once again? All these baffling questions are bound to make Bihar a boiling political cauldron.

On June 8, 2015 meeting in Delhi at the residence of Mulayam Singh’s residence, expectations were high in both the main partners of the alliance – RJD and JD/U. Lalu wanted the issue of CM candidate to be decided after election to keep Nitish on tenterhooks. On the other hand Nitish put his candidature as an nonnegotaiable precondition. Lalu appeared to be on a rough turf. His two sons and the eldest daughter, Misa Bharti are ready for political debut but for all political purposes, they do not carry any weight before a tested Nitish. Lalu himself, despite tall talks is not sure about his own status. Lalu’s senior colleague, Raghuvansh babu is also in favour of electing the CM by successful MLAs of the alliance. Thus he is facing internal opposition.

Moreover, Lalu wants seat sharing on the performance of the last Lok Sabha election, whereas Nitish bats for the results of the last assembly polls. Mulayam, finding these howling realities, despite the blood relationship with Lalu, decided in favour of Nitish as the CM prospect. About seat sharing a committee of representatives has been constituted. Thus, Lalu appears to have lost the ground vis-à-vis Nitish on all counts. Since he has hardly any option, as the Congress had already preferred to uphold JD/U, Lalu in a crestfallen manner admitted that in order to debar the communalists to grab power in Bihar, he had agreed to consume poisons of all sorts to protect the alliance.

To the Bihar political analysts, the arrangement to take on ever strong NDA does not appear foolproof. Perhaps , the situation may take some new turn.    

A HEALTHY NEW TREND

                                          

Since India achieved Independence, a common scene has been persisting to create pressure groups and demand reservations in public service jobs. Once such a pressure group succeeds, it would die for keeping it to continue indefinitely. To start with, we saw that our Constitution framers, with a feeling heart, gave reservation to SC/ST for ten years. Today after 65 years of the promulgation of the Constitution, it has been reviewed several times but no ruling parties had courage to take it back as the beneficiaries would be antagonized in vote bank politics. The matter has gone such a far that no political party has courage or commitment to come forward and announce a date for its discontinuance. It did not stop there. Service holders of this category enjoy reservation in promotion as well. Later on, the so-called OBCs united and launched their struggle for similar reservation and ultimately succeeded when B.P. Singh became the PM. It was followed by the Jats and now the Gujjars are on war-path.

Against this parochial decisions, the NDA Govt. in last one year of its dispensation, has launched nearly half a dozen of concessions, aimed at the wellbeing of the people at large without any consideration of caste or religion. Till a year ago, if a poor coolie, farm labour, rickshaw puller or similar others  died of a disease or in some accident, nobody came forward in his support. Today, if he invests just one rupee per month, on death, his family will get Rs 2 lakh. If he accepts another insurance scheme and invests Rs 30/- per month, again on death, his family will get a good amount. Under the Jan-Dhan Yojna, everyone is opting to have his bank account. For insurance claims, he will not have to depend on agents or middle- men. The amount will straight go into his account. If he joins the Atal Pension Scheme and regularly contributes every month a small amount, after being of 60, he will start getting pension for life. Thus, nobody in India will remain uninsured and on death he will not depend on anybody’s or govt’s mercy. Similarly, today everybody’s subsidy money on LPG cylinder goes to his bank account.

It is an excellent experiment, obviating malpractices on petty considerations.