My Columns: Without Fear and Favour

Similarities and Differences Between Indian and American Elections By  Deepak Parvatiyar April 10, 2015 Rate this post 1 Vote In his first media interview, eight months after becoming the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi quipped that he found it “amusing” how people, who did not talk about a ‘Modi wave’ in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, “are now engaged in intense discussion” regarding such a wave. He was replying to a question on the perceived end of the ‘Modi wave’ in Delhi assembly elections. How India Elects Its Prime Minister? Obviously, the last general election was remarkable for the fact that it was contested very much on the pattern of the presidential elections in the United States of America. It was all about the creation and marketing of Brand Modi – the BJP’s PM candidate, a la the US presidential elections. This was very unlike the Westminster system of democracy, modelled after the politics of the United Kingdom, that India follows. In th...

Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana – How successful is it? By  Deepak Parvatiyar April 8, 2015 Rate this post Rate this On September 2 last year, soon after the ambitious Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana was launched, we wrote in these columns that the real challenge was to keep the accounts that would open under the PMJDY alive. ( http://www.elections.in/blog/jan-dhan-yojana-a-too-ambitious-scheme/ ). We had written that the government need not rush the ambitious plan of financial inclusion without a proper action plan. More than half a year later, the PMJDY seems to have progressed steadily although the scheme still faces several teething troubles. In September, we had pointed out that the rush to open the accounts to meet the deadline set by the Prime Minister meant that there was no proper screening of the account holders. Besides, what was also required was a survey at the rural level to identify the financially excluded population to avoid dup...