Congress Comeback and Expectations

The election news in India is that the Congress will come back to power with some outside support. It looks like that this will also be a stable government.

With the monsoon going to set in early, the party has to give greater priority to Agriculture from the beginning. This is where more than half of the people and nearly three-fourths of rural people still depend upon there livelihood. If this is going to be a second term for Dr Manmohan Singh and he wants Mr Rahul Gandhi to be in the cabinet and I think that the latter should take up agriculture. In this sector, the opposition also needs to be involved in a major way. If planned well this has the capacity to address the larger financial crisis. The blueprint of the District Agricultural Plan has a lot of potential but then its implementation at the ground level is tardy.

Two positive and people friendly developments of the last government were the Right to Information (RTI) and the Nationation Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). This has definited translated into votes. These have to be carried forward with more vigour, make NREGA more inclusive (as already indicated by the Right to Food group) and also bring in a comprehensive Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) so that this self-employment programme complements the NREGAs wage employment.

Before I forget, they should initiate immediate steps to free Dr. Binayak Sen. He has been in jail for more than two years now. Then only, Jai Ho!

India Votes for Loksabha: Phase-V 2009

The last and final phase of elections will end on 13 May 2009. This will take place in 86 constituencies spread across nine states. They are Chandigarh (1), Haryana (4), Puducherry (1), Tamil Nadu (39), Uttarakhand (5), Punjab (9), West Bengal (11), Jammu & Kashmir (2), and Uttar Pradesh (14). As the campaigning ends one feels that the desperation and fractions in the Indian National Congress (INC) and its coalition of the United Progressive Alliance is more visible whereas the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its coalition of the National Democratic Alliance seems to be comfortable, though they may not get to the magic figure. Nevertheless, one intuitively feels that there are a number of surprises that one would expect. Post-poll arithmetic would be an interesting exercise.

India Votes for Loksabha: Phase-IV 2009

The fourth phase of elections is on 7 May 2009. There are 86 constituencies spread across eight state going into the polls. They are Bihar (3), Haryana (10), Jammu & Kashmir (1), Punjab (4), Rajasthan (25), Uttar Pradesh (18), West Bengal (17) and the New Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi (8).

In two assembly segments of Nalanda and two of Pataliputra (both in Bihar) the timing for voting is till 3.00 pm only. The battle royal is in NCT Delhi. The patience seems to be running out. People now are eager for these last to phases to get over and the counting to start on 16 May. The indication is that neither the Congress nor the BJP are likely to emerge as strong contenders independently.

Women Power

Today morning I finished reading My God is a Woman by Noor Zaheer. This is a must read for all those concerned about gender divide in general and that of the Muslim women in particular. After keeping the book aside, as I was still wondering in my thoughts and glancing through the morning newspaper my eyes fell on the story the first three rankers in the civil services examinations are women, 10 among the top 25 are women including Muslims, and overall there are 166 women from 801 candidates that made it. Hats off to all the women and men who made it. Women being on the top three is real good news and we hope that this trend continues and the number of women that make this also increases from the current one-fifth.

Lest we loose sight, the message from Noor Zaheer is that laws need to be constantly formed because people are constantly on the lookout to take advantage of the loopholes. Asking for rights, will always question some status quo and this would be opposed. But this journey is not to put the other side down but to tell them that we are all equal partners. It is a call for equality that all reasonable beings should support. Let us all celebrate this women power.