My Columns: Without Fear and Favour

Cow Slaughter Ban- Why people are opposing it in India? By  Deepak Parvatiyar April 6, 2015 Rate this post Rate this Yogi Adityanath, the irrepressible Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament, wants cow to be declared  “Rashtra Maataa (Mother of the Nation)”. On the flip side, why not? Doesn’t every Hindu child learn by rote that “Gai hamaari maataa hai (Cow is our mother)?” So why should Adityanath go overboard to demand an official stamp on such a notion of faith if not for whipping up the Hindu sentiments for obvious reasons? With his demand, Yogi Adiyanath is actually one step ahead of his party, which in its poll manifesto has already promised a ban on cow slaughter. But what does it imply? In any case a majority of Hindus, by choice and as a matter of faith, don’t kill cows or eat beef, just like the Muslims who don’t eat pigs! Remember that the army had revolted against the East India Company in 1857 over the issue of the gunpowder...

Summary of Financial Inclusion Conference in Mumbai By  Deepak Parvatiyar April 3, 2015 Rate this post Rate this Inclusive growth has to be the cornerstone of nation-building and financial inclusion of the marginalised segments is its important aspect.  The Reserve Bank of India broadly defines financial inclusion as providing universal access to a “wide range of financial services at a reasonable cost” and this has been marked as “one of the important” national objectives of the country. The Central Bank acknowledges that ensuring delivery of services such as low cost credit, bank accounts for savings and transactional purposes, financial advisory services as well as insurance facilities form the essence of financial inclusion. In the past, there had been certain measures taken to promote financial inclusion such as: Planningnationalisation of banks Setting up expansive branch  network of scheduled commercial banks Setting up ...

Babri Masjid demolition: SC issues notice to BJP leader L K Advani, 19 others. Tough times ahead for BJP? By  Deepak Parvatiyar April 1, 2015 It is impossible to find the embers of communal politics dying even after over twenty-three years of the demolition of the 16th century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya by the right-wing ultras in the presence of the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders including Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, and  Uma Bharti. On 31 March, the Supreme Court issued notices to senior BJP leaders LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi and eighteen others following a petition against the dropping of conspiracy charges against them in the Babri Masjid demolition case. With a quirk of irony, the court move was made just a day after Advani was awarded Padma Vibhushan – India’s second highest civilian award. You may also like to read It may be mentioned that two First Information Reports were filed with the police against the BJP leaders after th...

Whether the Modi Factor is Still Shining or Getting Diminished? By  Deepak Parvatiyar March 30, 2015 Remember that at his very first election victory rally in Vadodara, Modi had declared triumphantly, “Achhey din aa gaye hain” (Better times have already arrived)? As his government comes near to completion of a year in office, the ‘achhey din’ (better times) catchphrase still remains a misnomer. Why? Clearly, the concept of ‘achhey din’ has different dimensions for different people. In these columns we had raised this question on 21 July last year – when his rivals had started mocking the ‘Achhey Din’ promise just about a couple of months after Modi came to power at the Centre – whether the Modi-led BJP, in its quest for power, had ventured dangerously far to sell a Utopian dream of ‘Acchey Din’, that was impossible to realise? After all, every single individual has his/her perception of ‘achhe din’ which can never be satisfied! ( http://www.elections.in/blog...

Internal Feud in the Aam Aadmi Party By  Deepak Parvatiyar March 28, 2015 {"uid":2,"hostPeerName":"http://www.elections.in","initialGeometry":"{\"windowCoords_t\":0,\"windowCoords_r\":1366,\"windowCoords_b\":728,\"windowCoords_l\":0,\"frameCoords_t\":325.046875,\"frameCoords_r\":910.046875,\"frameCoords_b\":415.046875,\"frameCoords_l\":182.046875,\"styleZIndex\":\"auto\",\"allowedExpansion_t\":325.046875,\"allowedExpansion_r\":438.953125,\"allowedExpansion_b\":251.953125,\"allowedExpansion_l\":182.046875,\"xInView\":1,\"yInView\":1}","permissions":"{\"expandByOverlay\":true,\"expandByPush\":false,\"readCookie\":false,\"writeCookie\":false}","metadata":"{\"shared\":{\"s...