My Opinion

Exit polls telecast on Friday evening predicted a clear win for Congress in Rajasthan and for a TRS victory in Telangana, but were divided on Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. India TV-CNX exit poll predicted BJP win in MP, but another exit poll predicted a Congress win in MP. A third exit poll predicted a hung assembly in MP with both BJP and Congress in neck-and-neck position.

If Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan wins, it will be solely due to the fact that he never exuded arrogance during his 13 years’ tenure. As a politician, always in touch with the people, he always toured his state extensively and did not disappoint his party workers. It is not easy for any leader to counter the anti-incumbency mood after being in power for 13 years, but one thing is clear: BJP’s seat share in MP may decline, and the main cause could be farmers’ anger. Credit should also go to state Congress leaders, who sunk their differences and tried to work unitedly.

The picture is exactly the opposite in Rajasthan. Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje antagonized her own party supporters present in different communities. Though exit polls predict a clear win for Congress, one thing should be kept in mind. Three or four months ago, political pundits were predicting a two-third landslide win for Congress and a major debacle for BJP. But as campaigning came to a close, the fight became tougher. The main cause was attributed to mistakes in selection of Congress candidates, mainly because of overconfidence on part of the party leadership. BJP tried to take advantage of dissent in the Congress camp, as many rebel candidates entered the fray due to friction between Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot camps. These rebels tried their best to defeat official candidates of the Congress.

Even if the Congress registers a win in Rajasthan, it will be solely due to people’s anger towards Vasundhara Raje. The credit should go to the voters. The Congress failed in taking full advantage of people’s anger.

Chhattisgarh is a totally different story. With the fear of Maoists lurking in large parts of the state, voters were unwilling to express their opinion in public. The exit poll figures that came from that state failed to provide a clear picture. If BJP wins, it will be solely due to the image of Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh, who has implemented a number of welfare schemes for the poor. The bonus was from Ajit Jogi-BSP combine, which divided anti-BJP votes.

If Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao retains power in Telangana, it will be mainly due to cheap PDS foodgrains, water and electricity, and in doing so, his government has almost emptied the state’s treasury. Populist schemes often give good results during polls, but in the long term, it leaves the government high and dry, with no money left for development. The added bonus was in the form of Congress joining hands with Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP. Naidu had strongly opposed the creation of Telangana, and the voters were out to teach a lesson to TDP and its allies.

Let us all wait for December 11, when the electronic voting machines will be opened and the results will tumble out.

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The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed grave concern over the rising number of deaths due to potholes on roads. The apex court has said this is “unacceptable” and “frightening” and the government should come out with a plan to address this problem.

Potholes claim, on an average, 10 lives every day, and in 2017 alone, 3,597 people died due to road accidents caused by potholes. This number is 50 per cent more compared with the number of deaths in 2016.

An SC-appointed committee on road safety has in its report said that a total of 14,936 people lost their lives in the last five years from 2013 to 2017. The Supreme Court observed that municipal corporations, or state governments or National Highway Authority of India or similar bodies are not maintaining the roads in an effective manner resulting in pothole-related deaths. The bench also observed that there was no law relating to compensation for such road accident victims, nor was any criminal action taken against authorities responsible for shoddy maintenance.

Potholes on roads are caused not only due to acts of nature like rain, flood or other calamities. In most of the cases, roads are dug up for laying cables, repairing sewer lines, and are then left unattended. In many other cases, potholes appear on roads soon after monsoon, due to poor quality of road construction. Contractors indulge in outright cheating and there is sheer negligence on part of the officials entrusted with overseeing such work.

Union Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has earned the reputation of a go-getter by getting highways and flyovers built at a fast pace, and we do hope that he would come forward with a concrete plan to address this menace on a war footing.

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On Wednesday, Indian Youth Congress expelled its legal cell head Aljo K. Joseph, who appeared as lawyer for Agusta Westland middleman British national Christian Michel in the Rs 3,600-crore VVIP chopper deal. When BJP raised this matter, Joseph clarified that though he was a member of Congress party, he had appeared in his personal and professional capacity as a lawyer. Later in the evening, the Indian Youth Congress expelled him from the party membership.

Joseph, being a member of a political party, is not the issue at the moment. The larger issue is that of corruption. Christian Michel and two of his associates have been charged of giving bribes to Indian politicians, bureaucrats and Air Force officials for the purchase of 12 Agusta Westland helicopters. Michel was hiding in the UAE after fleeing India in 2013, when the then Defence Minister cancelled the deal and admitted that bribes had been paid. Michel was under arrest in Dubai since last year, and it goes to the credit of the government and CBI, which made painstaking efforts to extradite him.

Michel, presently in CBI custody, is expected to reveal the extent of bribes paid to politicians and bureaucrats, and this is surely going to stir a hornets’ nest in Delhi’s Lutyens Zone. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already given indication about this in his Rajasthan rally on Wednesday.

Moreover, the extradition of Michel to India has opened up similar possibilities for other economic fugitives like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, who have fled India after taking thousands of crores of rupees worth bank loans. This has certainly struck terror in the hearts of these fugitives and Vijay Mallya has already tweeted that he is willing to “return 100 per cent principal amount” of the bank loans that his group had taken.

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As eyewitness reports and videos of a mob killing a UP police inspector in Bulandshahr emerged, one thing seems to be clear. The violence that suddenly took place on Monday in Syana was not spontaneous. It seems to be part of a deeper conspiracy.

Bulandshahr is infamous for communal tension and illegal cow slaughter And yet, from Saturday till Monday, more than 10 lakh Muslim devotees took part in a massive congregation called Alami Tablighi Iztema. The local administration did not take this event seriously, and no precautionary steps were taken.

The congregation went on peacefully for two days, and on the last day, 30 to 35 cows were found slaughtered in the fields of Syana. This cannot be taken on face value as coincidence. It seems, there was a conspiracy to ignite communal flareup on a big scale across Bulandshahr district.

Cows were slaughtered in a forest near the fields in order to incite the feelings of Hindus. The conspirators succeeded in igniting tension, but the handful of 20 to 25 policemen posted at Syana police post acted bravely under the leadership of inspector Subodh Kumar Singh.

The local police tried its best to calm down tempers among the local villagers. The situation could have gone out of hand in Bulandshahr and the communal flareup could have spread to other districts of UP. The credit for preventing this goes to Inspecgor Subodh Kumar Singh, who deserves to be called a martyr.

The UP government must give all assistance to the family members of the slain inspector, but it needs to delve into the depth of the matter, and bring those conspirators to justice, who slaughtered cows in order to ignite communal riots.

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On Monday, an angry mob led by cow vigilantes attacked the police outpost in Syana and set fire to it, apart from indulging in widespread arson. They were protesting the slaughter of cattle in a nearby forest, and had staged a violent protest in front of the police outpost by carrying animal carcasses in tractors. A police inspector Subodh Kumar Singh and another youth were killed in the violence that ensued.

The UP police swung into action immediately and deployed Rapid Action Force and Provincial Armed Constabulary to stop the violence from spreading. This was necessary because a big Islamic congregation had been organized in Bulandshahr district from December 1 to 3, in which nearly a million Muslims gathered to offer prayers. The Alami Tablighi Iztema was being attended by Muslims from across the country and also from Gulf countries. Monday was the last day of the congregation.

It should be noted that the three-day congregation passed off peacefully without any incident. In one instance, local Hindus opened up a temple to allow Muslims to offer namaz, as the devotees had spilled over the road blocking traffic. Muslims offered prayers sitting inside a Shiva temple premises. There could be no bigger example of communal amity than this.

The discovery of animal carcasses on the last day of the congregation surely arouses suspicion in the minds of the people. The role of the slain police inspector Subodh Kumar Singh needs to be applauded as he tried his best to assuage the feelings of enraged farmers. He laid down his life while performing his duty, and the UP government has decided to grant Rs 50 lakh assistance to his widow and parents.

Now that a Special Investigation Team has been formed by UP police to find out the miscreants behind this violence, we should hope that the criminals will be brought to justice soon and punished.

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Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has boasted that Prime Minister Imran Khan, a renowed bowler during his cricketing days, has succeeded in throwing a ‘googly’ at India by deciding to start work on Kartarpur Sahib corridor. Qureshi said, India had been avoiding bilateral meetings with his country, but on the Kartarpur Sahib corridor issue, India had to send two of its ministers to the event.

Clearly, Pakistan is admitting indirectly that it had been using Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu to project its country in good light on the world stage. Sidhu, who praised Prime Minister Imran Khan to the skies at the Kartarpur Sahib event, has stirred another controversy on his return by saying that Congress President Rahul Gandhi and “20 other Congress leaders” asked him to go to Pakistan. “The central leadership of my party asked me to go. Rahul Ji is my captain.”

Sidhu, on realizing the controversy that he had stoked, later retracted his comment and tweeted to say that “Rahul Ji never asked me to go to Pakistan. The whole world knows that I went to Pakistan on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s personal invite.”

Sidhu’s actions and statements have caused lot of embarrassment to the Congress party leadership, and it is time that the party reins its voluble ex-cricketer.

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Former Indian cricketer and presently Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu has been used by the Pakistani establishment to the fullest extent during his two visits to Pakistan.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan raised the Kashmir issue at a religious gathering of Sikhs and wryly asked whether Pakistan should wait for Sidhu to become Prime Minister of India in order to get the Kashmir issue solved.
Sidhu publicly hugged the Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa during his first visit to Pakistan. A known pro-Khalistan separatist Gopal Singh Chawla was invited by Pakistani authorities to sit in the front rows during the Kartarpur corridor ground-breaking ceremony attended by Sidhu and two Indian ministers.
This anti-Indian person, Chawla then posted his picture with Sidhu on his Facebook wall, and yet Sidhu, on his return to India, says he does not know any individual by the name of Gopal Singh Chawla. “I was captured in 5,000 to 10,000 photographs. I do not know who was Gopal Chawla”, Sidhu said.
Pakistan PM Imran Khan used Sidhu to the full extent to throw barbs at India. The most surprising part is that Sidhu was so much overwhelmed by the lavish hospitality accorded by Pakistani authorities, that he plainly overlooked the sentiments of the Indian people.
Sidhu appears to be so naive that he is unable to understand why people are staging protests against him in India and are questioning the stand of his Congress party on Pakistan. I fail to understand why Sidhu is unable to realize his grave mistake.
On Thursday, India TV telecast a video of pro-Khalistan separatist Gopal Singh Chawla holding an AK-47 rifle and threatening India with dire consequences. Now that we have shown the true face of Gopal Singh Chawla, Sidhu should apologize for siding with our enemies who vow to dismember India.

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At the groundbreaking ceremony of Kartarpur Sahib corridor on Wednesday, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan called for better ties with India and claimed that both the civilian and military leadership were “on the same page” on the issue of India-Pakistan relations. He said, both the nuclear-armed nations cannot go to war “as we will all lose”. He also spoke of resolving the Kashmir issue, “provided the leaderships of both countries are determined”.

Clearly, Imran Khan was playing to the gallery, attended by foreign diplomats specially brought by a special PIA plane to a religious function. Imran Khan was trying to project himself as an ambassador of peace, but the ground realities are completely different.

Pakistan continues to arm and export terrorists into India, and the sight of a Khalistani separatist Gopal Singh Chawla sitting among the VIPs and shaking hands with the Army Chief underlined where the priorities of the Pakistani leadership lie. Chawla later posted a picture of him meeting Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on his Twitter handle, to gain public sympathy.

Pakistan has a long history of offering its hand of friendship to India and then stabbing in the back. Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee went on a bus to Lahore to smoke the peace pipe with the then Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif. Within months, Pakistani soldiers invaded Kargil.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited the Pakistani PM to his swearing-in ceremony in Delhi and then went out of his way to attend Nawaz Sharif’s birthday party in Lahore, but within days, Pakistani terrorists attacked our Pathankot air base.

Clearly, the Pakistan army is dictating terms to its civilian leadership on how to deal with India. The presence of a Khalistani separatist at a religious function attended by two Union ministers from India underlines the approach of the Pakistani top army brass.

Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu was the other point of focus at the Kartarpur corridor function. The speeches and actions of Sidhu and Imran Khan clearly point to a collusion between the two former cricketers. When Sidhu praised Imran Khan to the skies at the function, the latter applauded, and when Imran praised Sidhu, the latter was seen gleefully clapping. This was a not a sight pleasant to the eyes of Indian viewers.

Actually, the official invitation was sent to Punjab chief minister Capt Amrinder Singh, but it goes to the credit of Captain that he declined the invitation saying that he would visit Kartarpur Sahib, only when Pakistan stops exporting terrorists to India. The CM is on record of having said that he tried to dissuade Sidhu from attending the function, but the latter stood his ground and listened to the words of Pakistani PM instead of listening to his own CM. This is not going to go down well with the people of Punjab, and Sidhu may have to face political loss.

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A draft manifesto of Congress party has surfaced in Telangana, in which several sops have been promised for Muslims and Christians. These include: making Urdu the second official language, three finance corporations to help Muslims, Christians and other linguistic minorities, provision for giving government contracts to Muslim youths, Rs 5 lakhs assistance to poor Muslims for construction of houses, Rs 20 lakh assistance for poor Muslim youths to study abroad, granting of judicial powers to Muslim Waqf Board, free electricity to mosques and churches, hospitals for minorities, residential schools for Muslims, monthly honorarium for imams and muezzins of mosques, and action against private firms which hire employees on the basis of religion.

Though the state Congress leadership immediately disowned this draft manifesto, describing it as
‘fabricated’, efforts are on to water it down by replacing ‘minorities’ in place of ‘Muslims’ in order to evade allegations of Muslim appeasement.

Similarly, the draft manifesto promises SC status to Dalit Christians, medical and accident insurance worth Rs 5 lakhs for pastors and fathers in churches, free education for their children, honorariums and residential schools among other sops.

Minorities, especially Muslims, constitute 12.5 per cent of Telangana’s population and they act as the deciding factor in 42 out of 119 assembly constituencies. In Telangana, the Congress is in alliance with CPI(M), Telugu Desam Party and Telangana Jana Samithi, under the banner of People’s Front, which has already released its common manifesto, but the Congress has decided to release its own manifesto, which reportedly includes special schemes for minorities to counter the TRS-AIMIM alliance.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has described the draft manifesto as ‘divisive’ saying that any kind of categorisation on the basis of religion is not provided for in the Constiution.

Had the draft manifesto not leaked to the media, the Congress would have incorporated these ‘Muslims only’ and ‘Christians only’ sops in its manifesto. The party may now have to reply to BJP’s charge of ‘appeasement of minorities’, as Telangana goes to the polls on December 7.

On Monday, the Uttar Pradesh police suspended the Rae Bareli jail superintendent, jailor, deputy jailor, head warden and two jail warders after a video went viral showing criminals holding a dinner party inside the jail, and a gangster giving threatening call from a cellphone inside the jail. When the video surfaced, the DM and SP of Rae Bareli were sent to conduct a raid, in which four cellphones and a SIM card were seized. In a similar incident, another video of inmates using cellphones inside Surendranagar district jail of Gujarat has surfaced.

The entire jail system, that is part of our criminal justice system, needs a thorough overhaul. There have been reports in the past about inmates in Patna’s Beur jail flouting jail manual rules and a top builder in Delhi given five-star comforts inside Tihar jail. There are also reports of the Jessica murder case convict spending more time outside the jail instead of serving time inside the prison.

All these make a mockery of our judicial system. It is an open secret that prisoners who pay bribes on the sly get more comforts inside jails, and in some cases, criminals operate their gangs on cellphones from inside the jail.

The latest video about Rae Bareli jail is an eye-opener. It is true that chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s government has sent criminals in UP on the run. Many criminals have died in encounters and several others have surrendered out of fear. Criminals are no more getting political protection, which they used to get under earlier regimes in UP. However, it is now time for Yogi Adityanath to pay attention to the jail system.

The ground reality is that the number of inmates is higher than the current capacity of jails in UP and other states, and the number of jail staff is less. But gangsters holding dinner parties inside jail, and using cellphones to threaten their victims from jail, is certainly worrying. This could not have taken place without the connivance of senior jail officials. Stern action need to be taken against such erring officials.

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Ayodhya has turned into a virtual fortress with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad going to hold a Dharma Sabha on Sunday and the Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray offering prayers with his party leaders on the bank of river Saryu. Both the outfits are pressing for early promulgation of ordinance by the Centre to build a Ram Temple at the disputed spot Ramjanmabhoomi, even as the Supreme Court is set to begin hearing on the title suit from January onwards.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has demanded that the Supreme Court should immediately take suo motu cognisance and consider deploying Army in the city of Ayodhya. Already, the UP government has deployed BSF, CRPF, Rapid Action Force and state PAC alongwith 4,000 policemen to maintain law and order.

Additional force has been deployed in Muslim-dominated areas, even as there are rumours of members of minority community shifting from their localities in Ayodhya.

Building of Ram Temple at the Ram Janmabhoomi site is no doubt a matter of faith for the Hindus and holding of meetings is well within the democratic rights of citizens. But spreading baseless rumours should be dealt with sternly. Already, the UP government has taken steps to maintain peace in Ayodhya.

Shiv Sena and VHP leaders must ensure that peace and tranquility is maintained and no baseless rumours should be spread to vitiate the atmosphere. These leaders should understand that building of Ram Temple at his birthplace surely requires an atmosphere of peace and devotion, and nothing should be done to build communal tension.

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Even as the people of Delhi NCR suffer from persistent air pollution, with smog covering the national capital in the morning nowadays, a new study published in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrionology Journal, shows that outdoor pollution is causing diabetes among people, mostly children, in India.

Till now, we knew that the causes of diabetes are hereditary, lifestyle and diet disorders, but this study has added a new dimension. The study says, Type-2 diabetes is expected to rise by more than a fifth, from 406 million in 2018 to 511 million in 2030 globally. India, along with China and the US will share over half of these high blood sugar cases, and there will be need to improve access for the life saving insulin. By 2030, the study says, China will have 130 million and India will have 98 million Type-2 diabetics.

The study says, airborne microscopic pieces of dust, smoke, liquid droplets and soot can enter the lungs and invade the bloodstream, which can contribute to stroke, kidney failure, cancer and heart disease. Among prospective diabetics, air pollution can trigger inflammation that reduces the production of insulin. The research says, air pollution contributed to 3.2 million new diabetes cases during 2016. Already, 8.2 million lost their lives due to pollution linked diabetes, says the study.

Scientists at the Washington University of Medicine, St. Louis, US, did a research for eight and a half years on war veterans, who had no family history of diabetes, and found that 2.5 PM (particulate matter) in air caused diabetes among most of them. The study showed that harmful particulate matter reached the pancreas, and disrupted the production of insulin.

For India, this news is worrying. World Health Organization (WHO) has prepared a list of most polluted cities of the world, and the names of 14 Indian cities figure in that list. I asked my reporters spread in different cities to speak to doctors and experts to find out how pollution is causing diabetes, even though people follow a regulated lifestyle on medical advice.

Our reporter Nirnay Kapoor spoke to doctors in Ahmedabad. Dr. Rucha Mehta, famous endocrinologist, who has worked and done research in the US, told him that pollution not only affects the lungs and heart, but it also disrupts hormone secretions in the body. Hormone imbalance causes several diseases, mainly diabetes. She said that most of the women patients were already either in the pre-diabetic or proper diabetic stage, due to pollution, but she added, the most worrying point was that children are now suffering from diabetes.

Our reporters in Mumbai, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kolkata and Jaipur also met diabetics and doctors and found the same pattern. In most of the cases, cases of diabetes have been attributed to pollution. Children suffering from diabetes are taking insulin injections on a daily basis at this young age.

Two main diseases, cancer and diabetes, are spreading fast across the world. Both are silent killers and fatal. Every fifth Indian today is suffering from diabetes. A rough estimate puts the figure at nearly 25 crores.

If we study the problem in depth, we can observe that overpopulation in metros and other cities is one of the major causes of pollution. This is not limited to Delhi NCR alone, other big metros are facing a similar problem. For example, the national capital has natural resources and public infrastructure to host a population of up to 50 lakhs only, but the population in Delhi now has already crossed 2.5 crore. On an average, five persons are utilizing the resources and infrastructure available for a single individual.

The overcrowding of cities is due to lack of employment opportunities and better lifestyle options available in the villages. Millions of villagers have moved towards cities in search of job, food and basic civic facilities. Most of the rural areas lack proper schools, hospitals, job opportunities, and thus, the migration towards cities continues. The only way to stop migration to cities will be to improve the living conditions and job opportunities in rural areas. That is how we can address the root of the problems that relate to pollution and overcrowding of cities.

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