The Great Debate (India)
Should Manmohan Singh resign?
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been criticised by the Supreme Court over why he failed to probe what could potentially emerge as the country’s biggest corruption scam. The telecoms scandal is the biggest challenge to Singh, 78, since he became prime minister in 2004, and how the next few days unfold will be key to his political survival.
Telecoms Minister Andimuthu Raja was sacked last week after months of pressure from the opposition and Indian media.
The Supreme Court publicly criticised Singh for “alleged inaction” in taking 16 months to decide if Raja should be charged and investigated, a blow to the image of a prime minister seen as one of the country’s most honest politicians.
Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati will defend the prime minister in person at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, and he is expected to say Singh followed correct procedure.
The court cannot prosecute the prime minister but could say he failed to investigate Raja. Any suggestion that Singh ignored a case for prosecution would deal a severe blow to his reputation and call his leadership into question.
Should the prime minister resign?
Has the Bharatiya Janata Party lost its political plot?
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday expelled former finance minister Jaswant Singh from its primary membership for praising Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in a book.
The decision to expel Singh came after the release of his book “Jinnah – India, Partition, Independence” which the BJP said went against the party ideology.
As a visibly upset Singh, a founding member of the party, questioned the decision, the latest controversy to hit the BJP seems to have brought its internal conflicts out in the open.
Many pressing issues haunt the party as it begins its ‘Chintan Baithak’ – an annual brainstorming session.
The BJP was drubbed at the 2009 general election and faced a leadership crisis. Its elderly leaders are perceived as being out of sync with a young vote base and it has had an ideological falling out with its Hindu right-wing parent.
The BJP may need to take a hard look at these issues if it hopes to reinvent itself.
Singh’s book and its fallout have led some liberal thinkers in politics to question the wisdom of meting out punishment to an individual for expressing a personal opinion especially since larger issues like revamping the organizational structure of the party and its revival need to be addressed.
This a really sad day. India continues the path of Nehruvian darkness of banning books for questions existing ideas. The truly sad part is that, this is the party that was set to question the status quo.
Jaswant Singh is a respected politician and one of the founders of today’s BJP. It deeply saddens me that we as a people re failing to evolve at every test that is thrown at us.
People who can not agree to disagree and must banish the disagreement with an ostrich like behavior has no place in a progressive, civilized world. A truly dark day.
Who will be India’s PM?
As election fever reaches its peak amid the counting of votes on Saturday, all eyes are now on which party will cobble up a majority and stake claim to form the new government. And who will be India’s new prime minister? Will it be –
MANMOHAN SINGH
The father of India’s economic reforms, Singh’s image of a compromise prime minister opened him up to criticism that he took orders from Congress party boss Sonia Gandhi and he has been criticised as a weak and directionless leader.
He regained stature by pushing through a civil nuclear deal with the United States, despite opposition from his left allies.
Singh, 76, takes a keen interest in economic issues — a rarity in India where prime ministers focus mostly on foreign affairs and domestic politics.
LAL KRISHNA ADVANI
Variously described as a hardliner, a hawk and a wily politician, Advani is a leading advocate of his Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) trademark Hindu revivalism.
In this time the situation is more typical. Because the polling of vote’s is very low.But if the congress govt. is coming in India then india is so poor country in all word and the most “THE INDIA BECOME PAKISTAN” .In seen of present situation the present age of mom duns in our country is more then Hindu’s in next 10 year’s and then they are ………………….So we decide the future of INDIA
Pakistan in a maelstrom?
( C. Uday Bhaskar is a New Delhi-based strategic analyst. The views expressed in the column are his own)
The Ides of March have been linked with deep political intrigue and pre-meditated violence and history notes that Caesar paid a very heavy price for not paying heed to the sage advice rendered unto him.
Pakistan is no Rome but the pattern of recent events that include the ‘conquest’ of the Swat valley by the Taliban, the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore and the blowing up of the shrine of the Sufi-saint Rehman Baba at the foothills of the Khyber Pass by Sunni extremists are cumulatively indicative of a socio-religious tsunami whose tectonic implications go well beyond the political contours of Pakistan.
Concurrently the country is poised on the cusp of an irreparable breakdown between the two major political parties – the PML(N) led by former PM Nawaz Sharif, and the PPP led by the Pakistan President, Asif Ali Zardari.
This tragic paradox is heightened by the reality that while the disparate extremist groups that are broadly classified as the Pakistan Taliban are uniting under a common banner and leader – the political forces that can counter such ideology are splintering.
But then historically Pakistan has been plagued by myriad domestic contradictions and paradoxes and long-time Pakistani watchers see the current turbulence with a sense of déjà vu.
From the first military take over of Pakistan by General Ayub Khan in October 1958 to the more recent coup by General Pervez Musharraf in October 1999, the khaki constituency has always been the central element of power in the national matrix.
It is clearly advent there is a political instability in the country, which is deterimantal to the world and to the people of Pakistan. The common man is caught in the cross fighting for power between Taliban and the so-called government authorities. The dissidents expressing their grievances are either exterimanated or kept under house arrest. It is sad plight for the citizens. Moreover, the rise of Taliban and Islamic fundmentalism is dangerous as Pakistan become the hub for terrorism.
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The Wall
In the recent time there are three people were do good things upper nili chatari wala (the God)In Japan,niche Nili pagadi wale PM saab In India and the famous tikadi of USA France And UK to capture the oil field of Muslim country and vanish them from power,So the let talk about present government of india is the very corrupt govt. in the history of india and the manmohan sing is the man who wa not a good administrator since narsimha’s govt. when he was the finance minister he did some good work but still i knew that i was 16 year’s old the inflation to high, lot of borrowings stock market scam and since that time nothing change but the amount of scam is grownup and find more area of scam, There are lot of scam in India after thr revealing of telco’s scam like scam in infrastructure, UMPP allotment, NAREGA, NRHM, Stock market, agriculture ministry,and etc. i would like wikileaks that provide a information that a common people not know that his vote were waste since independence if he given vote to the congress because last time I vote them and still I thing that i waste my vote to choose such corrupt govt. and I never vote in future if the public of Indian vote to kind of person who not thinking about the employment , education, road , water, health of poor people. there are to many things to write but the I feel so bad that people of india never change why i worried ………………….. god help us or the tikadi of US UK And France …………………………..