My Columns: Without Fear and Favour

Decoding Ved Pratap Vaidik – Saeed Meeting By  Deepak Parvatiyar July 16, 2014 Before I analyse, I must acknowledge Ved Pratap Vaidik’s seniority as a journalist. He has held all those coveted positions that a budding journalist aspires for. Decades ago when he joined the profession, journalism for many was more of a mission than a profession – a mission to spread awareness, educate, and be a fierce arbiter of probity in public life …till things changed and market considerations took over that space. Vaidik himself vouches for press freedom and declares himself to be a ‘free’ person. Over the years he has cultivated a good readership for his writings. But he stirred a controversy after he tweeted from Pakistan the photograph of his meeting with Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the dreaded head of Jama’at-ud-Da’wah – banned as a terrorist organisation by India, the United States, Russia, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The United Nations has placed s...

Causes of Corruption in Indian Bureaucracy By  Deepak Parvatiyar July 15, 2014 During my college days, quite a few of my friends wanted to crack the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) for a bizarre reason – an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer would fetch more dowry than anybody else! A politician friend of mine, upon becoming a first time minister after winning the elections, compared his babus with Aladdin’s jinn who were more than eager to fill the coffers of their political master, including their own A professor of financial management at a top ranking institute of the country, after holding a workshop for some senior bureaucrats, was visibly annoyed by a participating bureaucrat who wanted him to teach ways of managing unaccounted money worth crores. An upright Indian Police Service (IPS) officer said he could not stop his juniors from indulging into corrupt practice because he could not risk them deserting him in a riot-like situation. A newl...

published in http://www.elections.in/blog/why-does-india-have-a-separate-railway-budget/ Why does India have a separate Railway Budget By  Deepak  Parvatiyar July 14, 2014 The Economist described it as a “bizarre system introduced by the British colonial government” that makes India the only country to have a separate budget for its railways. But political expediency requires a separate railway budget, every year. What are the compelling reasons? Let’s find out. On June 20, when the Narendra Modi government announced hike in the passenger as well as freight fare with effect from June 25, it did not wait for the railway budget that was due to be introduced in Parliament in less than twenty days’ time. The Indian Railways Act, 1989, empowers the Central government to fix fares, freight rates and other charges and also empowers zonal railway administrations to quote special rates and contractual freight rates. Similarly, trains can be introduced or extended by ...

http://www.indiablooms.com/FeatureDetailsPage/2014/featureDetails150314a.php West Bengal : Changing Colours By Deepak Parvatiyar West Bengal : Changing Colours Changing Challenges By Sitaram Sharma. Publisher: Rupa Publications Price: Rs 295 Sitaram Sharma’s “West Bengal: Changing Colours Changing Challenges” offers a ringside view of the changing political scene in West Bengal – one of the last bastions of the Communists in the country – in the last half century. It reflects on the prevailing complexities of the socio-economic and political environment in the state and attempts to explore the factors that lay behind the success of the Left in 1977 and their return to power in election after election till 2011, and identifies the influx of refugees from East Pakistan as an important factor for Red ruling the state for so long. The book suggests that the government’s failure to rehabilitate the refugees, whose numbers kept increasing and by the 1960s cross...

http://www.newkerala.com/news/2014/fullnews-64887.html#.U5gLlvmSySo REVIEW: How Narendra Modi became a gamechanger By Deepak Parvatiyar, Narendra Modi: The GameChanger; Author: Sudesh Verma ; Publisher: Vitasta Publishing; Price: Rs.399/- soft bound; Published: Feb 2014 Suddenly the book market is flooded with books on Narendra Modi, who till the other day was media's whipping boy. The spectacular mandate has overnight transformed the new prime minister of India into media's poster boy. Unconfirmed figures suggest there were more than 105 books on Modi-- written by various authors in varying styles -- that hit the stalls recently. Yet, Narendra Modi - The GameChanger, is one of the more authentic books on the subject. While it cannot be termed as an authorised biography, the book is based on numerous interviews with Modi and his relatives, friends and his critics. "The 400 plus pages talk about the inspiring stories that made Modi what he is today- how he evolve...

http://epaper.pudhari.com/epapermain.aspx

PEOPLE “Voter is more important than representative” By: Trans World Features (TWF) At 90, eminent Gandhian scholar Narayan Desai sees ‘hope’ in the Aam Admi Party. He is the son of Mahatma Gandhi’s personal assistant Mahadev Desai and the chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapeet— founded by Mahatma Gandhi. Yet, unlike Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Rajmohan Gandhi, who has formally joined AAP, Desai, instead, prefers mobilising Gandhians’ support for AAP. In an exclusive interview to journalist and filmmaker Deepak Parvatiyar, Desai talks about AAP, Narendra Modi, the Congress, and the issues concerning him and other Gandhians. Excerpts:   0     0     0   Google + 0     0 How do you look at your rare involvement in the deliberations on 2014 elections in New Delhi recently? As a Gandhian thinker, what makes you support the Aam Admi Party? The breakthrough that it (the Aam Admi Party) seems to have created in the present conditions of Indi...

Parliamentary elections 2014 South and Central Gujarat By Deepak Parvatiyar (This article was published in all editions of Marathi daily Pudhari on 28th March 2014) http://epaper.pudhari.com/details.aspx?ID=450808&boxid=21322619&pgno=10&u_name=0 Can Narendra Modi’s candidature from Vadodara this election swing the tide in favour of the BJP and can the lotus repeat its performance of 1999 –the party’s best ever performance in Gujarat when it won 20 of the 26 parliamentary seats in Gujarat? The BJP feels that Modi’s candidature from Vadodara is bound to have an impact in four-five nearby constituencies in tribal and central Gujarat – traditionally the Congress bastions. The Congress expects a good return here. Not surprising therefore that the  Congress vice-president  Rahul Gandhi  chose to launch a strong attack on Modi from a massive public rally in this tribal-dominated region of South Gujarat in March this year. Political observers f...

(English translation of the article published in Marathi daily Pudhari on 26th March 2014) http://epaper.pudhari.com/details.aspx?ID=%20450325%20&boxid=194759515&pgno=1&u_name=0 Elections 2014 North Gujarat, Saurashtra and Kutch By Deepak Parvatiyar Narendra Modi’s home town Vadnagar falls in the Mehsana parliamentary constituency of North Gujarat. His exploits while growing up in this sleepy town, such as swimming in “crocodile infested”  local lake and selling tea at the railway station, has become a part of the folklore here. After all, Modi is perceived to be the next prime minister of the country! While the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate himself chose to contest from Vadodara  in South-Central Gujarat (and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh), his very name is enough to prop up the BJP here like elsewhere in the  Mehsana  parliamentary constituency– which the BJP had annexed from the Congress in the 2009 general elections. Campaigning is a l...