'“Modi is a coward and a psychopath” tweeted Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal just after his office was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation without permission, or even forewarning. The tweet made it clear that relations between the two governments and leaders have now deteriorated to perhaps a point of no return. The CBI that reportedly stormed into the Chief Ministers office, sealed off the floor and refused to allow officials to enter.
'Incredibly, the government of India will spend more on this one line than it does on rail safety, Swachh Bharat, schools, highways or health... In every which way, Narendra Modi’s 2014 campaign was spectacular. From communication to ground management, the Bharatiya Janata Party electoral machine, it is widely acknowledged, got it right. However, a year and a half after Modi took office, one aspect of his campaign seems to have been a bit too spectacular altogether.
'The National Commission for Scheduled Castes has taken cognizance of the "indecent" remarks made by Haryana's Health Minister Anil Vij against IPS officer Sangeeta Kalia and has sought a report from the state Chief Secretary in the matter. Slamming Vij's "get out" remarks against the woman officer, the Commission's member Ishwar Singh said on Saturday that he has sought a report from the Haryana government within a week.
'Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday continued his campaign against state governor PB Acharya, and shot off a letter to the President, requesting him to immediately replace him because of “making no distinction between his constitutional functioning as Governor of a state and his political and ideological instincts.” Acharya had also converted the Guwahati Raj Bhavan into an annexe of the BJP office, he alleged.
'...Parliament has lost its importance. While Modi described Parliament as the “temple of democracy”, he has, so far, not attended as many of its meetings per year as his predecessors. Instead of promoting inside Parliament the bills he needs passed, Modi has resorted to more ordinances than recent governments. In one year, he has issued about 14 ordinances. In contrast, UPA 2 issued only 25 ordinances (four per year). This is not only because of the NDA’s lack of a majority in the Rajya Sabha.
'HRD minister Smriti Irani recommended over 5,000 requests for admission to the Central government-run Kendriya Vidyalaya chain of schools in the current academic year, a more than four-fold jump from quota levels of her predecessors. Of the admissions recommended by the minister, some 3,000 were finally effected after the others apparently opted out on some account or the other... The KVS administration is said to be looking into why only 3,000 of the 5,000-odd admissions recommended by the minister materialised. The HRD ministry did not respond to emailed queries on the matter...
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi could be accused of many things, but not of inconsistency. When he finally spoke about the Dadri lynching — in which a Muslim resident of western Uttar Pradesh, Mohammed Akhlaq, was murdered by a mob on the suspicion that he possessed beef — he essentially repeated what he had said from the ramparts of Red Fort in 2015: let people of different religions fight poverty together, and not each other.
"The BJP's battle for Bihar just got murkier with the party's own lawmaker and former Home Secretary RK Singh alleging that money has changed hands for tickets. "They are giving tickets to criminals. How will they give a clean government? This is injustice to the people of Bihar. Some people have sold tickets to criminals. Many BJP workers are angry over seat distribution," Mr Singh said in Patna today. "When the tickets were distributed, I called Sushil Kumar Modi, but he did not receive my call," he added.
"The exit of Mahesh Rangarajan as director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) raises uncomfortable questions about the government’s role in appointments at the highest level in institutions that have been central to the intellectual life of the nation. The loudest question is: Why now? If the minister for culture finds the permanent appointment of Rangarajan by the previous regime “unethical and illegal” today, it must have been just as questionable when the Narendra Modi government took office in May 2014.
'A new draft National Encryption Policy put out by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology seeks to define the various encryption standards allowable on data originating from the country, and does so in its traditional ham-handed way. In an abridged version of the document, put out by DEITY, the department proposes some practices that effectively run counter to the philosophy of encryption – of data as well as devices.
