m/
F In 2014, Murderer of democratic institutions (Modi) promised India
that if he gobbled the Master Key by tampering the Fraud EVMs, he would
lead the country into a new golden era. Swept up by the тАЬAb Ki Baar,
Modi SarkaarтАЭ slogan, several lakh Indians believed his promises of
prosperity, employment, development, and тАЬAchhe DinтАЭ and voted him into
power.
4 years later, what is India like today? The Narendra Modi Report Card gives you answers.
Unemployment
4 years after Narendra Modi came to power, India has the maximum number of unemployed people in the world!
Narendra Modi came to power on the promise of creating 1 crore jobs
every year. But his government has barely succeeded in creating 2.05
lakh jobs each year. The unemployment rate has gone up from 3.41% in
2014 to 6.23% in 2018.
Instead of the 4 crore jobs that were
promised over 4 years, only 8.23 Lakh jobs have been deliveredin the
last 4 years (till October 2017) and, according to the International
Labour Organization, most of it classified as vulnerable
employment.Based on its estimate of the number of people aged 15 and
above, the report projects that to even maintain constant employment
rates up to 2025, India will need to create at least 80lakh jobs
everyyear!
Petrol and Diesel Prices
Petrol and Diesel prices
have hit an all time high in 2018! In the years when the price of crude
oil was low around the world, the BJP government kept raising petrol and
diesel prices. It is estimated that the government earned Rs. 4.5 lakh
crores every year since 2014 through excise on oil but kept that money
and did not pass on the benefits to the common man.The big question is,
тАЬWhere did all that money go?тАЭ
The other big question is - What happened to тАЬBahut hui petrol aur diesel ki maar/Ab ki baar, Modi SarkaarтАЭ?
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The Effects of
Demonetization
Far from creating new jobs, Narendra Modi has lost India lakhs of jobs
with that completely unnecessary blow to the economy called
тАШdemonetizationтАЩ. According to The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy,
demonetization cost India 15 lakh jobs between January and April 2017
alone.
99% of the money that was demonetized has now come back
into circulation. Demonetization,it turns out, was a futile exercise
that brought the RBI Rs 16,000 crores but ended up costing it Rs 21,000
crorein the printing of new notes.
Demonetization brought the GDP
growth rate gone down from 7.93% to 6.50%. It has had no impact on
terror funding either тАУ the other big reason that was given for this
destructive exercise.
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Impact on terror funding
In short, demonetization accomplished nothing other than traumatizing crores of Indians.
Corruption
Bank Defaulters/NPAs :
In 2014 Bank defaulters, Non Performing Assets (NPAs) were worth Rs.
2.4 lakh crores. By December 2017 they shot up to Rs. 9.5 lakh crores.
The great majority of defaulters are corporations.
Bank Frauds :
Modi promised to be the countryтАЩs chowkidaar. But under his watch,
since 2014, there have been 12,787 bank frauds amounting to Rs. 17,789
crores!
Scams :
Modi promised, тАЬNa khaoonga, na khaane
doonga.тАЭ But according to Forbes, India is today the most corrupt
country in Asia! The first example that comes to mind, of course, is the
diamond merchant Nirav Modi who fled the country after defrauding
Punjab National Bank of Rs. 13,000 crores.
Besides the other
better-known escape artists like Lalit Modi and Vijay Mallya, a total of
31 scam-tainted billionaires have also fled the country, right under
the nose of our chowkidaar. Approximately 500 Indians are featured in
the Panama list but the government has taken no action against them.
The murderous Vyapam Scam in Madhya Pradesh continues to haunt even as
the purchase of Rafale jets from France at a much higher price than was
negotiated by the former UPA government, casts a dark shadow of
impropriety over the BJP government.
To top it all, Arun
JaitleyтАЩs electoral bonds have now made it possible for donors to donate
anonymously to political parties and have made campaign funding more
opaque more opaque than ever.
Before 2014, Modi had claimed that
after coming into power he would curb corruption, but 4 years later, he
has still not appointed a Lokpal.
Perhaps itтАЩs time for India to get a new chowkidar?
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Communalization
Despite the governmentтАЩs claims to the contrary, India has become a
dangerous place for its minorities. The brutal lynching of Mohammed
Akhlaq in Dadri in 2015 on the mere suspicion of possessing beef, the
murder of young Junaid Khan aboard a train in 2017 simply because he was
a Muslim and the horrific hacking to death of Afzarul Khan, a Muslim
labourer,later that year by Shambhulal Regar on the suspicion of тАЬlove
jihadтАЭ are grim reminders of this new reality.
Atrocities on Dalits :
There were more than 33,000 cases of atrocities on SCs in 2008, but
2014 saw 45,000 cases while 2016 saw 40,800 cases, according to the
National Crime Records Bureau data.
National Crime Records Bureau
(NCRB) indicated a sharp rise in crimes against Scheduled Castes (SC)
and Scheduled Tribes (ST) and that the crime rates against the
communities has jumped eight times (746%) and 12 times (1,160%)
respectively in the past decade.
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Cow-related hate crimes that led to deaths have shot up:
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97% of these attacks took place after 2014. 84% of those killed in
these attacks were Muslims. In the last 4 years, Muslims have been
severely marginalized to the point that BJP leaders have even claimed
that Muslims have no right to be in India.
Links:
thewire.in
The Farmer Crisis
Compared to an average growth rate of 5.2% per annum between 2010-2014,
the agricultural growth rate has dropped to 2.4% per annum between 2014
тАУ 2018
The average income of a farmer across 17 states continues to be тВ╣20,000 a year! That works out to a mere тВ╣1666 a month!
The BJP promised in 2014 that farmers would тАЬ50% profit above cost of
production, over and above MSPтАЭ. This never materialized. Instead 36,420
farmers committed suicide between 2014 and 2016. (Figures for 2017 and
2018 are still awaited from the government)
Loan waivers were
promised but not implemented. For example, in UP, farmers have been
given cheques of less than Rs. 10 as waivers, and asked for bribes to
waive loans. In Maharashtra and Rajasthan too there have been U-turns by
the governments on loan waivers. One of the fallouts of this was the
Kisan Long March in Maharashtra.
These states are laggards in
making MNREGA payments as well. Meanwhile, noises continue to be made
over the impact of farm loan waivers on fiscal deficit and GDP, with RBI
governor Urjit Patel calling loan waivers тАЬa moral hazard. тАЬ
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Links:
dailyo.in
swarajindia.org
The State of Education
On February 2017, Prakash Javadekar claimed that India (Centre &
states combined) was now spending 4.5% of GDP on education. However, the
figure is only 2.9% according to the Economic survey of 2016-17.
Javadekar also claimed that India is тАШprogressingтАЩ towards achieving the
6% target. But the facts show otherwise.
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The Government has also shut down 2 lakh government schools over the
last 4 years. Instead of trying to enroll and retain children in
government schools through their mapping and recruiting qualified and
trained teachers, the unplanned closure of schools is leading to massive
dropout of children, especially girls from the tribal areas in Odisha,
Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand as well as in Rajasthan, Telangana and
Gujarat.
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The BJP is also making a
concerted effort on rewriting history in school textbooks. Mughal
history is slowly disappearing from textbooks. We may soon have a
generation that will grow up without knowing about the history of Qutub
Minar and Taj Mahal.Instead, the new textbooks have chapters on
demonetisation, тАШMake in IndiaтАЩ, the negative impact of non-vegetarian
food on health, the prime ministerтАЩs foreign visits, cashless
transactions, NITI Aayog, the 16th Lok Sabha elections, Swachh Bharat
Mission and the Paris Agreement, amongst the Modi governmentтАЩs other
initiatives.
Universities: Under the garb of granting autonomy to
universities across India, the government is making it more difficult
than ever for people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds
to get good quality education and is also tampering fatally with the
quality of education that will be given.
Universities are
repositories of critical thinking and independent opinions. It should
thus come as no surprise that universities like Jawaharlal Nehru
University, Hyderabad University, Aligarh Muslim University, Delhi
University and Banaras Hindu University have come under increasing
attack over the last four years. The space for free thinking in academia
and education is shrinking dangerously.
Links:
hindustantimes.com
thewire.in
wadanatodo.net
thewire.in
Foreign Policy & Diplomacy
While ModiтАЩs awkward hugs with world leaders make for great headlines
back home, they havenтАЩt translated into much by way of policy.
The United Kingdom has tightened the screws on Indians working there :
Of all applications for the Tier 2 work visa, reports suggest that 36
per cent were refused in December, 47 per cent in January, 48 per cent
in February, and 59 per cent in March. Indians are the hardest hit by
these refusals. Thus despite giving grand speeches at the Wembley
stadium, the Prime Minister has been unable to achieve much in terms of
policy.
To add salt to wounds, when the British Prime Minister
Theresa May visited India, she said India may have to take back some of
its nationals before its given more visas, and not a whimper of protest
was raised by the Indian government in response.
In the United
States too, India has been ineffective in persuading American public and
state opinion on the H1-B issue. Besides a few tweets from Donald
Trump, India has not been successful in persuading United States to put
any conclusive pressure on Pakistan to crack down on terrorist
organizations.
IndiaтАЩs voice is also absent from major political issues, such as Syria and Iran.
In its immediate neighbourhood, India has become a bumbling Big Brother
The first major mistake was IndiaтАЩs decision to blockade Nepal in 2015, thus handing a crucial ally on a platter to China.
IndiaтАЩs lethargic decision making in Maldives has meant that China has
made rapid inroads in Maldivian domestic politics. The much-celebrated
Indian involvement in IranтАЩs Chahbahar port may have been premature, as
there are reports that Iran has now approached China to participate in
the portтАЩs development.
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The Indian
governmentтАЩs decision to bar Tibetans in India from holding events in
Delhi is a clear sign of submission to Chinese pressure, and a failure
to show assertiveness to Beijing in wake of the Doklam crisis.
ModiтАЩs biggest failure in the neighbourhood has been his Pakistan (non)
policy. There seems to be a clear lack of strategy that is a confused
mix of surgical strikes, surprise visits to Lahore and utter
mismanagement of domestic politics in Kashmir, to the point that the
local population has been alienated to such an extent that Pakistan will
find it much easier to interfere and delegitimize India further in the
valley.
Also, a spurt in tit-for-tat firings across the LoC has
resulted in unnecessary and mindless deaths of young soldiers, and there
seems to be no strategy in place.
Links:
thewire.in
thewire.in
thewire.in
WomenтАЩs Rights and Safety
The horrific rape incidents and their aftermath in Kathua and Unnao are
a stark reminder of how unsafe India has become for women.
The
National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) found that overall rape cases have
seen an increase of 12.4% from 34,651 cases in 2015 to 38,947 in 2016.
A study by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has found that the
BJP has the highest number of MPs and MLAs (14), followed by the Shiv
Sena (7) and the All India Trinamool Congress (6) who have declared
cases related to crime against women.
In just one year, India
slipped 21 places on the World Economic ForumтАЩs (WEF) Global Gender Gap
index from 87th to 108th behind neighbours China and Bangladesh. WEF
said that тАЬon average, 66% of womenтАЩs work in India is unpaid, compared
to 12% of menтАЩsтАЬ.
90% of the funds allocated last year to Beti Bachao Beti Padhao remain unutilised!
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Inter-Parliamentary Union and United Nations Women ranked India 148 in
the world for the number of women in Parliament. Pakistan ranked 89 and
Bangladesh 91.
Links:
scroll.in
huffingtonpost.in
hindustantimes.com
dailyo.in
The Attack on The Judiciary
It is in the reign of Prime Minister Modi that the Indian
judicialsystem is undergoing its biggest crisis ever! For the first time
in the history of India, 4 Supreme Court Judges addressed a press
conference expressing their grave concerns over the mismanagement of the
Supreme Court.
The mysterious death of Judge Loya who was
investigating the role of BJP President Amit Shah in an extra judicial
killing, hangs heavy over the judicial system even as the Opposition has
called for the impeachment of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
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Links:
bloomberg.com
qz.com
Destruction and Underfunding of Existing Welfare Schemes
i. The Great Aadhaar Heist
Before becoming Prime Minister, Modi tweeted:
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“On Aadhaar, neither the Team that i met nor PM could answer my Qs on
security threat it can pose. There is no vision, only political gimmick”
This тАЬpolitical gimmickтАЭ became legislation through the controversial
Money Bill route in 2016, with Aadhaar now practically mandatory for as
many as 139 government schemes, and a host of private services including
financial institutions and mobile connections. This has been done in
defiance of successive Supreme Court orders - the Aadhaar-SIM linking
even went as far as using the fiction that the SC directed the Telecom
Regulatory Authority of India to do so!
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The linking of Aadhaar to government welfare and subsidy schemes has
caused much havoc, including the death of as many as 30 people who were
denied rations for linking their Aadhaar. The lack of Aadhaar linking
has also resulted in denial of MNREGA wage payments, besides affecting
farm loan waiver payouts, school admissions, pension payments, treatment
for AIDS and other health services, and a host of other essential
services.
The several Aadhaar cases pending in the Supreme Court
and various High Courts have finally been heard by the Constitution
Bench, and the verdict is awaited.
ii. Healthcare and other systems of welfare depleted of funds
India ranks 145th among 195 countries in terms of quality and
accessibility of healthcare. It is behind its neighbours like China,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan, according to a Lancet study.
a. National Health Mission funding has been cut by 20%, and not revamped as was promised in 2014
b. The National Health Protection Scheme offering insurance cover
announced in 2015 was re-announced in 2018, with no outlay or no
timeline.
c. In 2015, Modi slashed the budget for central AIDS
programmes by 22%; in Delhi alone, 80% of community workers were laid
off. Funding was later restored after outcry from activists.
d.
Spending on critical welfare schemeshas been slashed consistently, only
increasing back to 2014 levels in the pre-election budget announced in
2018.
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iii.Gorakhpur Hospital Children Deaths
Perhaps the clearest example of the neglect of public health services
in India was seen in the deaths of 60 children due to lack of supply of
oxygen cylinders at Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College in Gorakhpur.
The hospital is the only tertiary care facility in the area equipped for
combating Japanese encephalitis, a deadly disease which has been a
scourge in Eastern Uttar Pradesh for many years. Dr. Kafeel Khan who
saved the lives of several children was тАЬrewardedтАЭ for his services with
a 8-month jail sentence because the Gorakhpur incident apparently cast
the UP Chief Minister in a bad light!
Links:
ndtv.com
thewire.com
moneylife.in
thewire.com
Non-Starter Schemes
While many schemes that the PM has launched are largely renamed schemes
from the Congress era, several of them like Stand Up India, Skill
India, Start Up India etc are still far from achieving their targets.
Also, the Modi governmentтАЩs much- announced 100 тАЬsmart citiesтАЭ are
nowhere to be seen.
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Links:
thewire.in
thequint.com
Wasteful Government Expenditure
At a time when the country is reeling from a damaged economy, massive
unemployment and a huge agrarian crisis, the governmentтАЩs unnecessary
and wasteful schemes strike a jarring note.
Notable among these
are the Sardar Patel тАЬStatue of UnityтАЭ which will costRs. 3000 crores,
the Shivaji statue off the coast of Mumbai to cost Rs. 2500 crores and
Ram Statue in Ayodhya which will cost Rs. 330 crores. Perhaps this money
(Rs. 5830 crores) might have been better spent on providing better
healthcare facilities for IndiaтАЩs ailing children. This is not to
mention, of course, the Rs. 4343 crores the government has spent on
advertising and publicity the last four years.
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And considering the number of railway accidents that have taken place
in recent years, perhaps the Rs. 1.1 lakh crores that will be spent on a
Bullet Train built, could perhaps have been better utilized on making
the existing Indian railway infrastructure safer?
Links:
thewire.in
scroll.in
time.com
thehindu.com
Misleading by Example
The Prime MinisterтАЩs educational qualifications are still a mystery but
it does not stop him from telling children how to pass exams and even
writing a book on the topic. Instead of telling outright untruths like
тАЬNehru did not visit Bhagat SinghтАЭ and тАЬNehru insulted CariappaтАЭ,
perhaps PM Modi would do well to remember that misquoting history does
not change it. He would also do well to remember that it does not
behoove the Prime Minister of a country to follows vicious and
misogynistic trolls on Twitter or lavish praise on lewd and obscene
cartoonists.
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Links:
bbc.com
scroll.in
thequint.com
Gagging The Media
India has now slipped to 136th place in the World Press Freedom Index.
In 2017 alone, 12 journalists either murdered or killed in suspicious
situations. The largest democracy in the world thus emerges as one of
the most hazardous places for media persons after Mexico, Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.
And while Prime
Minister is yet to address a genuinely open Press Conference, the
Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has done its best to curtail
the freedom of not just mainstream media but social media as well. Some
independent and freethinking portals and media professionals continue to
fight the good fight, nonetheless.
CobrapostтАЩs most recent sting operation shows just how compromised much of the mainstream media really is!
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Links:
thewire.in
thequint.com
thewire.com
An Eco-Unfriendly Government
India is 177th in the Environmental Performance Index among 180
countries! In the last few years, IndiaтАЩs resources have been looted
with impunity.
Many are not aware of the role the тАЬProject
Monitoring GroupтАЭ (PMG) of the Prime Minister’s Office has played in
causing environmental havoc. The role of the PMG is to enable investors
(FDI of Rs 500 Crore or Indian Rs 1000 Crore) to log in to the e-Suvidha
portal and seek intervention in changing policies, obtaining clearances
and changing rules to facilitate them!Once uploaded, the PMG officials
chase down the appraisal authorities to expedite the clearances without
proper due-diligence!
A look at the current list of 914 projects in
this portal is clearly indicative of the grossly climate unfriendly
approach the government has unleashed. This has completely undermined
laws and policies; the mindless and relentless pursuit of
тАЬease-of-doing-businessтАЭ is completely destroying the edifices of the
regulatory and oversight institutions.
One dreads to think if
further improvement in the facilitation of destructive corporate
activities have to be undertaken, how much more degradation of
environment and quality of life we need to suffer.
The wrecking of
the Yamuna flood plains by Sri Sri Ravi ShankarтАЩs World Cultural
Festival in 2016, the fact that the Ganga still remains polluted despite
the much touted Namami Ganga scheme, and most recently the damage
caused by Sterlite/Vedanta copper smelting plant in Tuticorin, the
resulting public anger and the gunning down of 11 protestors by the
police, serve as stark reminders of the non-existent priority the
current government places on environmental wellbeing.
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Links:
With thanks to: Environmental governance over the past four years тАУ
From тАЬPromises & RealityтАЭ - Citizens’ Report on four years of the
NDA Government 2014-2018 (Page 45 тАУ 48)
thewire.in
ndtv.com
Youtube.com
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