One Year of BJP Govt

Governmentalisation of Yoga

A PURELY individual physical exercise like yoga has for the first time in the history of post-Independence India been given a national status because the central government announced that June 21 would become a landmark in Indian history when “the whole of India” would be officially expected to perform yoga exercises. The central government had asked every public servant, autonomous universities/colleges and others to observe June 21 as International Yoga Day, which was accepted by the United Nations at the sole initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The NDA’s War on Rural Poor

THE NDA government waged an incessant war on rural poor immediately after coming into power. As a key strategy of this war, the Modi-led government made an explicit commitment to remove any kind of State intervention which hinders the free play of market forces. The key elements of this strategy are allowing foreign and domestic private capital to poach the vast rural market through various means of market instruments. The precondition for such facilitation lies in the limiting the role of government agencies, systems that govern the economic activity in an agrarian economy.

The Season of ‘Spin-Masters’ Has Arrived

IN recent history, Tony Blair has beaten all competition hollow while triggering the Iraq invasion. The business of manufacturing ‘spin’ is an age-old pre-occupation in politics. One of the major exponents, Hitler’s propaganda minister Goebbels is considered one of the ‘best’ in the business. Not only did he manufacture with rapid fire speed and regularity but also owns the copyright for putting it on a firm theoretical foundation. He maintained that ‘spin’ is an interpretation of reality to the ‘people’ or the ‘masses’ and make them believe that it is the ‘truth’.

Achche Din for Corporates and Sangh Parivar, Bure Din with a Vengeance for the Masses - (2)

ONE of the catchy slogans coined by Narendra Modi in his first Independence Day address from the ramparts of Red Fort was ‘Make in India’. Like most BJP slogans, it was designed to stoke patriotic feelings to cover up its real intentions. It sought to increase domestic industrial production and the manufacturing sector and held out the carrot of employment. For it to succeed, three things were needed. These three were land, labour and capital.

On Modi's Foreign Policy

PRIME minister Narendra Modi had visited 18 countries in his first 12 months in office. Incredible! as, on an average, it makes one country for every 20 days! No wonder apologists for the BJP and Modi are trying to project 'foreign policy' as the government's biggest achievement. If one peels through the layers of 'event-management' that went into each of these visits, one can easily find that the 'core' of the foreign policy is 'rotten', if not empty.

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