My Opinion

Enough of meetings, too much efforts have been made to initiate dialogue, now is the time for strong and intensive action: against those who are indulging in violence in the valley, attacking security personnel, against those separatist leaders who are thriving on support from Pakistan, their channels of funds need to be plugged, they should be thrown into jail.

The people of India now expect Prime Minister Narendra Modi to show to the world what his government can do to tackle separatism in the valley. Those showing flags of Pakistan on Indian soil need to be taught a lesson.

Two things have now become clear after the all-party delegation’s visit to Jammu and Kashmir. One, the Centre is trying its utmost to bring back normalcy in the valley, and the opposition parties are with the government, Two, separatist leaders of Hurriyat Conference do not want normalcy to be restored. The question now is: what do the Hurriyat Conference leaders want? They may have been dissatisfied with the Centre, but why did they refuse to even speak to the all-party delegation? The answer was given by Abdul Ghani Bhat. Hurriyat leaders want India to start unconditional talks with Pakistan. But the stance taken by Hurriyat leaders on not even speaking to Indian political leaders, raises question about their credibility. One can understand if they speak for the people of Kashmir, but to advocate for Pakistan? Nobody can accept.

There is not an iota of doubt that Navjot Singh Sidhu is popular in his home state, he is dynamic, he is considered a good orator, and if he contests the elections, he can affect the Punjab poll results. Because of this, the BJP leadership had nominated him to the Rajya Sabha, but he decided to quit. The Aam Aadmi Party then tried to woo him, but Sidhu refused to accept its terms and conditions. The Congress, too, tried to ensnare him, but Sidhu refused to accept Amarinder Singh as his captain. Now if Sidhu sets up a front, he can cause headache to all the parties that had sought his support. Meanwhile, the other factor is Suchha Singh Chotepur, who set up and groomed the AAP in Punjab, but was hounded out by Arvind Kejriwal. If Chotepur gives a fight to Kejriwal and start revealing the true colours of Kejriwal to the voters of Punjab, it will definitely affect the preferences of voters in Punjab. And the most significant part is that if Sidhu’s front joins hands with Chotepur’s party, then they can really become a force to reckon with in Punjab.

If one listens carefully to what Arvind Kejriwal, his ex-party leader Prashant Bhushan and his dismissed minister Sandeep Kumar are saying, one thing becomes clear: Kejriwal and his colleagues are paying only lip service to probity, morality and sincerity in public life. Whenever Kejriwal has to win elections, he looks at the candidate’s winnability instead of honesty, and purposefully ignores the candidate’s character, corruption and background. When Kejriwal’s ministers get caught, they either say I’m a Dalit, or I’m a Muslim, but, in reality, all of them are in the same league. Kejriwal still lives under the illusion that he can mislead the public by claiming that he took quick action, but there’s an old Bollywood song ‘yeh public hai, sab jaanti hai’. Kejriwal taught his volunteers how to carry out a sting, but the traps they had dug are snaring their own ‘diamonds’ who are now turning as black as a coal. But, Kejriwal is yet to realise his mistake. He is busy carrying out stings against his own party leaders, one glaring example of this is Suchha Singh Chotepur of Punjab.

When Arvind Kejriwal came to power, he had claimed he had brought rare “diamonds”to the Delhi assembly.

Today one such “diamond” was found caught in a sex scandal, and that too, a minister given charge of women’s welfare. He was caught on camera doing obscene acts with women.

Earlier, one such “diamond” was sent to jail for submitting fake marksheet, another “diamond” was nabbed extorting money from builders.

Some more such “diamonds” were found embroiled in other scandals.

I don’t know how many more “diamonds” he has inside his kitty.

And even after all this, if Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia continue to say that their party believes in principles, their party can never tolerate disrespect to women, their party never tolerates scams and scandals, then we can only say this: God save the AAP.

Of late, there have been fresh charges against Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. Seventyfive persons were appointed in Delhi Women Commission, some of them were appointed on Rs 1 lakh salary. Similar appointments to party sympathizers were made in Delhi Secretariat, Mohalla clinics and other services. No sanction was sought for these appointments from the Lt. Governor of Delhi. Now that these appointments are being probed, two questions arise: One, these were made overlooking rules, and Two, appointing partymen to government posts amounts to injustice to thousands of other youths who are unemployed. If the charges are baseless, then Kejriwal need not fear, but if the charges are proved beyond doubt, then he should be ready to defend himself and be prepared to face punishment.

People in Kashmir Valley desire to live in peace.

Kashmiri families want their children to grow up to become better human beings, traders want peace to prevail, but the problem is that their sane voices are drowned in the cacophony of conspiracy and politics.

Of course, the painful reality is that use of force with the help of bullets and guns to bring back normalcy, can only succeed for a limited period only.

When common people realize that throwing stones at policemen, encouraging militancy, giving strike calls, shutting down shops hurts them the most, then people start talking, they come out in the open.

The instigators then withdraw, giving way to a solution. Now that the common Kashmiri has begun to speak up, one should hope that their sane voices will have the desired effect.

Sakhshi’s feat is by no means small. She is the first woman wrestler after seventy years of independence and the fourth female athlete to have bagged a medal in the Olympics. Kudos to her for her stupendous achievement. However what is worth worrying is that a country with a population of 125 crores is having to console itself with only a Bronze medal. We need to find out, in a country where there is no dearth of talent and where there are athletes who are working very hard, what is stopping us; how such problems can be overcome so that the country does not have to wait so anxiously and is able to cherish such achievements like that of Sakshi more often. Should we not start preparing for the Olympics four years in advance?

With PV Sindhu’s win today, India is now assured of a silver medal in Badminton. She defeated her Japanese opponent Nozomi Okuhara who put up a spirited fight, in straight sets. Nothing can stop Sindhu from winning silver but the whole country is hoping that she wins the gold by defeating Spain’s Carolina Marin in the finals. Given the way Sindhu has been performing, there is a high chance that she can win. Nothing can be more proud than two daughters of India winning laurels for the country especially on a day like Rakshabandhan!

States like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, UP, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat have banned the Chinese ‘manja’ or the kite string. The Delhi Government has been repeatedly clamouring for a similar ban…a PIL is also pending in High Court. The Court had asked the Government to implement the ban before August 15 but the Delhi Government had petitioned that the ban could not be implemented in haste. Now with three people having died, the Delhi Government has today issued a notification imposing the ban. Had the government acted earlier, perhaps the tragedies could have been avoided. It is well known that during holidays like Independence Day or Rakshabandhan, kite flying becomes very popular and the dangerous Chinese manja is sold in high numbers. The question that the Delhi Government will have to answer is why despite a young man having lost his life last year and fifteen people having been injured, there were delays in implementing a ban.

It seems that those who raised anti India slogans at the programme organised by Amnesty International in Bengaluru are the same people who raised such slogans in JNU in February this year. They are a handful of 10-12 people who have perhaps now travelled to Bengaluru to create an impression that people across the country are concerned about Kashmir. The Government must identify these people and take strict action against them.

The Congress party may allege that Balochistan is Pakistan’s internal matter and any reference would only complicate matters in Kashmir. Pakistan has always been in denial and has never allowed any Baloch leader to even enter the country. However there has been a huge development with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s references to Balochistan in his Independence Day speech which seems to have unsettled Pakistan. The country has now extended an invite to Baloch leaders in exile for talks.