'Far from being ‘useless’, the MNREGA helps the impoverished and resilient poor earn a decent living... Famously on the floor of Parliament, Prime Minister Modi dismissed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) as a ‘living monument’ of the previous governments’ failures, condemning millions of impoverished people to survive by ‘digging ditches’. This spring near Bhim in Rajasthan, I had the rare experience of labouring on an MGNREGA site.
"Rohini Salian, Special Public Prosecutor in the case related to the Malegaon 2008 blasts in which four Muslims were killed during Ramzan and in which Hindu extremists are the accused, has said that over the past one year, since “the new government came to power,” she has been under pressure from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to go “soft” in the case... Soon after the NDA government came to power last year, she said, she got a call from one of the officers of the NIA — the agency investigating all the alleged Hindu extremist cases — asking to come over to speak with her.
"This report is an attempt to document intense and multi-pronged attack unleashed on the democratic rights of citizens and secular values enshrined in the constitution of India. Since the present regime came to power we have witnessed that the citizens rights and secular ethos, secured during the past sixty years, have been trampled upon with impunity..." Read the full report.
'Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s overseas fan club is swelling. Among his new fans are the leaders of Germany’s Pegida ‒ a German acronym for the Patriotic Europeans Against Islamisation of the West group that was formed in Dresden in October. The organisation hit the global headlines in January when, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in France, 25,000 sympathisers turned out to protest Muslim immigration to Germany.
"India will awake to a spectacular show on June 21, which the United Nations has declared to be the International Day of Yoga. On that day Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lead a mass yoga session at Delhi’s India Gate, striking physical poses, or asanas, and doing breathing exercises, which are supposed to bring about the unity of body and mind. As is true of most of Bharatiya Janata Party’s pet projects, the observance of the International Day of Yoga will combine elements of cultural nationalism, commercialisation of the ancient India physical exercises and subtle coercion.
'The BJP's misuse of the media has echoes of Indira Gandhi's Emergency. Yet when out of power, the party is in campaign mode for the autonomy for Prasar Bharati... Before the 2014 elections, Doordarshan was attacked repeatedly for censorship and unfair coverage of opposition leaders. Post May 2014, the BJP and its Prime Minister have shown no hesitation in using the state-run media, AIR and Doordarshan as a major propaganda vehicle, mostly for fireside chats of the Prime Minister which deal with what development communicators would call Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) and some try to justify the policies initiated by the government...
'Noting that voluntary disclosures of information have been "below par", a CIC-constituted panel has said that details of domestic and foreign visits of Union ministers should be proactively disclosed and kept updated. The committee said this against the backdrop of the PMO not disclosing information about expenses incurred on foreign visits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister's Office(PMO) has been refusing to disclose information related to expenses incurred on Modi's foreign visits, citing various excuses such as the records that are sought for being "vague"...
'Two IAS officers in Chhattisgarh have been issued notice for not wearing the bandhgala prescribed by protocol when they greeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the latter's visit to Naxal-affected areas of the state last week. Amit Kataria, the district magistrate of Bastar, has also been reprimanded for keeping his dark glasses on when he met PM Modi on an air strip along with Dantewada Collector KC Dev Senapati. Neither officer wore a bandhgala. They have violated IAS rules, the state's BJP government alleged in its notice...'
'In this season of discontent with Narendra Modi, academic and writer Madhu Purnima Kishwar is yet another admirer who is disappointed with the prime minister's leadership, goals and aspirations. In a free-wheeling interview, Kishwar outlines what has gone wrong and gives a caustic report of Modi’s first year in office. Excerpts:
'Top industrialists and CEOs, including Adani group chairman Gautam Adani and Vishal Sikka of Infosys, will be part of a high-level business delegation that will travel to China during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the Communist nation this week...'
