Category: Bihari

Producer of incendiary song, “Jo na bole jai shree Ram,” claims its writer is a “patriot”

Source: caravanmagazine.in

These are the opening lyrics to a new song uploaded on YouTube on 23 July, on a channel called “Varun Bahar official.” The three-minute-long song, titled, “Those who will not chant victory to lord Ram, send them to the graveyard,” is by a Bhojpuri singer, Varun Bahar Upadhyay. The video features Bahar dressed in an all-saffron outfit, sporting rudraksh beads—seeds that are used as prayer beads, usually by followers of the Hindu god Shiva—against a fixed backdrop splashed with images of the Hindu god Ram. The video switches between Bahar singing, images of young men carrying swords and threatening bystanders, and groups of saffron-clad boys and girls dancing. An unidentified graveyard—the cemetery is dotted with Christian crosses—makes an appearance every time Bahar sings the chorus, accompanied by some fist-pumping for added effect. The hashtags accompanying the song are equally unimaginative: “#saffron#terrorist#varun.” The description has a single line in Hindi which translates as “after singing this song, the media has declared Varun Bahar as a saffron terrorist.” A casual search on Google did not reveal any such media reports.

The song has, however, been shared widely on social media, drawing sharp reactions, and scathing criticism for inciting lynching and mob violence against minorities. The unequivocal exhortations in the song’s lyrics are undeniable. Bahar’s YouTube channel, which had 549 subscribers as of 6 pm on 24 July, has been online since 2013, but the oldest video is from just a year ago. The channel is an absurd mix of devotional songs, Bhojpuri love songs, videos proclaiming and seeking support for the prime minister Narendra Modi and content that can only politely be termed titillating.

Bahar’s mobile phone has been switched off since the morning of 24 July, following the furore on social media, and I could not get in touch with Santosh Singh Yadu, the writer of the song and a co-curator of the channel. Rajesh Verma, who runs a YouTube channel called Janta Musical And Pictures, produced and directed the video. Verma told me that the video was originally uploaded on his channel “two or three days ago, but we removed it from Janta music because it became controversial.” He said that some “Pakistani channels and local channels” contacted him and told him that “it’s wrong to say ‘send them to the grave,’ and so we took it down.”

Verma denied that the lyrics were inflammatory and said that “the singer did not take names” of any religion. He argued that “both Hindus and Muslims use graves.” When I pointed out that Hindus are cremated and so the song targets minority communities who bury their dead, Verma claimed that “only married Hindus are cremated, unmarried and single Hindus are buried.” He appeared to have forgotten that the Bharatiya Janata Party patriarch, Atal Bihari Vajpayee—an avowed bachelor—was cremated with full state honours. “I am not anti-Muslim,” Verma told me, when I pushed him to explain the anti-minority lyrics of the video. “I visit dargahs every Thursday and do pranam whenever I go past a mosque.”

Verma’s Janta Musical channel has released 598 videos as of 24 June. One song is titled, “’If you don’t like saffron, get out of India” and boasts of 5.5 million views. Another is called “Every Hindu’s call: Temple first, government only after that,” and has 252,000 views. All the songs feature violent imagery of men dressed in saffron, carrying swords and other similar tropes of majoritarian assertion. The channel also contains several videos supporting Modi and the BJP.

“Bahar and Yadu came to me with the idea of the song,” Verma said. He added that Bahar hails from a village called Mankapur, “near Ayodhya.” He noted that he had heard the song before uploading it but justified the offensive lyrics and its call to violence. “Some people are saying we won’t let the Ram temple be built,” Verma told me. “We are devotees of Ram, so we have made a song in praise of Ram.”

Verma was puzzled by the objection to providing a platform to the song: “If it was a matter of hurting anyone, why would we upload it?” When I asked him who the video was addressed to, he blithely responded, “The writer of the song is a deshpremi”—a patriot—“and he may have had the stone-pelters in Kashmir in mind while writing the song.” Verma also denied any connection to a political party or group and said he was an “independent music producer.” Janta Musical has a Twitter account, which tweeted on 23 July, “We apologise for the rumours spread due to the song of one singer. It was not the intention of Janta Music to hurt the religious feelings of any group.”

While Verma claimed that he removed the video soon after uploading it, the song was available on the “Varun Bahar official” channel till around 6 pm on 24 July. It has now been removed but is still being shared widely on other social-media platforms. The singer and writer, though unavailable, seem to have no regrets about the song or its content. Just hours before the video was removed, at around 3 pm on 24 July, Bahar and Yadu posted this statement, from their official account, in the comments section:

In the Saga of Bihar, Where to Start and Where to Conclude?

Source: patnadaily.com

During the considerable time gap since then much water has flown down the rivers and many events, both pleasant and unpleasant — from abuse of girls in shelter-homes to Pulwama bombing to the Lok Sabha elections to the outbreak of encephalitis — have all filled the pages of newspapers, I spent a good hundred days in India, mostly at my ancestral home in the city of Darbhanga (24 Feb to 19 May, 2019). Away from India, I always had the urge to reach out to fellow Biharis through the PD columns; closer home, as if I was on an unexplained leave of absence!

Before arriving at Darbhanga, my wife, Reeta, and I had the opportunity to visit my alma mater JNU, present a talk arranged by Dr Mansi Mandal, a JNU alumni, at Amity University (Gurgaon), meet with a number of friends and relations in Delhi, and take a holy dip at the Prayag Kumbh while camping with my Lucknow-based cousin sister Madhu Di (originally from Patna).

At every stage of my travel, I thought I could have sent a short dispatch to PatnaDaily capturing my impressions or experience (as many competent writers do), but the procrastinator in me always came in my way. During my prolonged stay at Darbhanga, I always toyed with the idea of writing something and thought of a potential topic every day but, again, failed to get myself to doing that on one pretext or the other. The idea seemed to drown with the setting sun every night.

The thought of uselessness of writing, frankly, also crossed my mind. It possibly discouraged me from typing out my impressions. I was most likely overwhelmed by many things going on around me. I decided perhaps voluntarily to internalize the experiences and then set about expressing them. But then the question was where to start, which question to take up and where to go? Who will I be writing for? Who are the targeted readers? Is there anything new I’m going to say? Should I be recording things for myself and then share with interested friends and relations later? How is this going to be beneficial to the society? And so on.

As a Bihari settled in Canada, I thoroughly enjoyed being at my ancestral home place living in its own life-style; however, that didn’t prevent me from critically looking at my own surroundings in Darbhanga, most of the time through a foreigner’s pair of glasses. The contrasts between our two livings — and the mindset — were so stark that I feared if I said anything critical, I would be seen as attempting to force people into adopting certain attitudes and behavior that they considered “foreign.” But my anguish continued. I wished to engage everyone around me in a serious conversation: Please think long and hard about the future of Bihar.

If I were to frame one question, I would ask: “Are we trying to make Biharis, particularly the generation that is under ten, into the future aware Citizens?” What will happen when this huge chunk of the population grows up into adulthood not properly educated or trained; not seeing a clean or efficient administration or the rule of law in action; not realizing the dangers of lawless behavior on the road or in the over-populated neighborhoods; not understanding the consequences of environmental (including noise) pollution or not comprehending the superstitious-exploitative, ritualistic, self-destructive or political aspects of organized/ institutionalized religions?

It’s very easy to hold the government-that-be responsible for everything and it is to a large extent; but, what about the role of the people with whom lies the Sovereignty, who were part of the Civil Society? What when the government had all good intentions and a section of the people were hell bent on frustrating them? What when the people took laws into their own hands? So where to start and where to conclude?

Sheila Dikshit, an efficient leader who steered Delhi into the future

Source: thehindu.com

The political legacy of veteran Congress leader Sheila Dikshit, who was India’s longest serving woman Chief Minister, was best summed up by her one-time rival and now Union Minister for Science and Technology, Harsh Vardhan. “We had our differences on policies, but we always admired her behaviour and efficiency,” he said as Delhi plunged into mourning following her death on Saturday evening.

“For 15 years, I had the opportunity to work with her in the Assembly as an MLA. But we always admired her behaviour and efficiency at work,” he said.

It was this efficiency that made Ms. Dikshit the face of a fast-changing Delhi, someone who knew how to change political adversity into opportunity.

The city’s change to cleaner public transport bears testimony to Ms. Dikshit’s efforts. In April 2001, public transport in the national capital collapsed as nearly 10,000 old and polluting diesel buses were ordered off the roads by the Supreme Court. The Congress government led by her was not ready with a plan to deploy cleaner CNG buses.

“For nearly two decades, Sheilaji personified Delhi and the aspirations of its citizens. She served them with her heart and mind and they gave her their abundant love. Every resident of Delhi will feel that he or she has today lost a member of his or her family,” former Union Minister P. Chidambaram said. 

Her largely successful legacy in Delhi was, however, marred by allegations of corruption during the 2010 Common Wealth Games. 

She also briefly served as the Governor of Kerala from March to August in 2014.

Ms. Dikshit was born in Kapurthala in Punjab to a non-political family in 1938, and graduated from Miranda House, University of Delhi. In July 1962, she married bureaucrat Vinod Dikshit, who she had met during her college days.

And her first foray into politics came when she assisted her father-in-law Uma Shankar Dikshit, a loyalist of Jawaharlal Nehru who had served as a Minister in the Indira Gandhi Cabinet in 1971 and become the Governor of Karnataka and West Bengal.

Ms. Dikshit took the formal plunge in 1984 when she became a Lok Sabha member from Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh. Known to be a loyalist of the the Gandhi family, she was hand-picked by Rajiv Gandhi in his Council of Ministers after he became the Prime Minister in 1984.

“We worked closely together during the years she was Chief Minister of Delhi, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief and secretary of the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust,” Congress leader Sonia Gandhi said in a letter to Ms. Dikshit’s son, Sandeep Dikshit.

Ahead of the 2017 Assembly election, the Congress projected her as the chief ministerial candidate, but she was dropped after it tied up with the Samajwadi Party. She was made the Delhi Congress chief ahead of the Lok Sabha election and was defeated in the North East Delhi constituency.

Statistics don’t lie: Why Bihar CM Nitish Kumar is miles ahead of other contenders

Source: dailyo.in

Though the Bihar Assembly polls are scheduled for 2020, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has already declared Tejashwi Yadav as its chief ministerial candidate. While it appeared a little hasty and ill-timed for a party that drew a blank in the Lok Sabha polls, many argued that RJD’s declaration was more for intra-party consumption, and not for the people of Bihar. However, RJD’s apparent taste for Bihar’s top job has prompted many backroom boys across political lines to take a closer look at the Lok Sabha poll results. This is obviously an attempt to find whether RJD’s desire carries any weight in Bihar and if the political pecking order in the state has any new entrant.

A fresh data analysis of votes has been pulled out to assess if the poll outcome also has some hidden meaning attached to it. While statistics are notorious for not telling the whole story, the data analysis of voting during the Lok Sabha polls in Bihar has really thrown up some surprising assessments. The biggest surprise first: The BJP, which bagged the maximum votes in the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, is not the biggest gainer if you compare performance of political parties during the last two elections held in Bihar.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP bagged 96,18,904 votes in Bihar. In the 2015 Assembly polls, the saffron tally was 93,08,015 votes. Clearly, despite their impressive showing in Bihar, having won all 17 seats contested in 2019, the BJP has gained just about 3.10 lakh votes from 2015. So, who is the biggest gainer in Bihar? The results of a data analysis — based on a comparison of the last two elections held in Bihar — are convincingly in favour of Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) or JD(U). In 2015, Nitish’s party had bagged 64,17,041 votes. In 2019, its vote tally shot up to 89,02,719 votes. If you compare the two performances, it becomes clear that Nitish’s party has added more than 24.85 lakh voters in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls.

The JD(U)’s leap of 38.73% over its 2015 tally is staggering. If we compare the votes gained by the two ruling parties in Bihar (JD(U)’s 24.85 lakh votes to BJP’s 3.10 lakh), it becomes clear that the jump in Nitish’s vote tally is eight times more than that of the BJP. More surprises come to fore when the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)’s vote tally of 2019 is compared to the number of votes it polled in 2015. The RJD bagged 62,70,107 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls compared to 69,95,509 votes in the 2015 Assembly polls. So, the RJD has lost just 7.25 lakh votes in 2019 against its performance in 2015. The figure, however, also reveals a significant insight.

While the JD(U) has raised its vote tally by nearly 39% over its 2015 performance, its electoral gains have not come from the losses of its opponents. The majority of additional votes that Nitish’s party has gained in Bihar appear to have come from new voters. Incidentally, since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Bihar has topped the country’s tally when it comes to adding new voters to the electoral roll. The figure for new voters in Bihar was 61,33,940, whereas West Bengal with 55.02 lakh new voters and Rajasthan with 43.45 lakh new voters, were second and third, respectively. 

“Assuming that about 60% of Bihar’s new voters actually voted in the Lok Sabha polls, the number comes up to 36 lakh. If we place this figure against the 24.85 lakh new votes that Nitish Kumar’s party has added to its kitty in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, it seems that nearly 70% of the new voters have voted for JD(U),” says a senior IAS officer. “It is clear. While JD(U) has kept its support base intact, it has also added majority of the new voters in Bihar to its vote tally. The reasons are abundantly clear. The new voters, the youth of Bihar, are smart enough to identify the leader whom they can count on for vision and leadership,” says JD(U) spokesman Rajeev Ranjan Prasad. “They [Bihari youth] can differentiate between a run-of-the-mill politician and a statesman like Nitish Kumar”.

“This explains why majority of the new voters have voted for the chief minister’s party,” Prasad adds. The assumptions are well supported by Bihar’s electoral record as Nitish has, indeed, remained the fulcrum of Bihar politics since his party defeated Lalu Prasad’s RJD in the October 2005. From 2005 to 2019, Bihar has seen four Assembly and three Lok Sabha polls. Barring the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the winner always had Nitish by his side in six of those seven elections. Though Nitish always talks about pooling all sections together, JD(U) sources admit that around 30% extremely backward castes (EBCs), and 15 per cent Mahadalits (the most marginalised among the Scheduled Castes) form the nucleus of the JD(U)’s strength.

Together, these two social sections have over 150 castes, constituting nearly 45% voters in Bihar. If RJD’s solid support base among the Yadavs, the single-largest caste group in Bihar with 14% of the population, combined with a sizeable chunk of 16% Muslim votes, has failed to stop Nitish in successive state elections, it was largely because the Bihar CM had similar consolidation of EBCs and Mahadalits behind him. Now, it seems the new voters have also preferred Nitish over others.

Gurugramwale: 87 years later, this snack corner is still going strong

Source: hindustantimes.com

It is good fortune to chance upon an old but thriving place, especially when it is tucked away in a hyperactive metropolis where everyone is so obsessed with the new that it becomes tough for establishments to survive for too long.

Bihari Bhujiya Wala is a landmark shop in Gurugram’s Sadar Bazaar that makes several salty and sweet savouries. These namkeens, bhujiyas, mathris and biscuits are available in various permutations and combinations of fried fritters, nuts, pulses and spices. The shop is like a huge warehouse crammed with snacks piled up into soaring mounds, like heaps of gold coins that you would imagine in the treasure cave in Ali Baba’s story. BBW, as the shop is referred to by locals, is one of the oldest surviving shops in the Millennium City. It was founded in 1932. “My grandfather Lala Bihari Lal established it,” says Raju Goyal, perched in a little air-conditioned glass-walled alcove tucked away in one corner of the store. Although it has only one outlet, the shop has the air of a professionally run retail chain. Expect no muggy claustrophobia of a typical bazaar store.

No flies, no filth; and the staff are looking smart in red shirts.

A clerk behind the counter talks of having more than 100 types of products. The claim seems believable.

There are two kinds of namak pare (plain, masala), two versions of tosha (cheeni, gur) three types of aloo bhujiya (pudina, mirchi, plain)… the list can fill up the entire page. Between us, you can have a filling breakfast just by tasting all the finger-food on sale. And don’t forget to take a sneak peek at the owner’s small cabin. It has the black-andwhite portrait of the late Lala Bihari Lal, BBW’s founder.

The shop is open daily from 9am to 9pm.

Census 2021: Chief Secy stresses on complete and accurate enumeration

Source: pragativadi.com

Bhubaneswar: Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi on Friday chaired a preparatory meeting for Census of India-2021, the largest administrative exercise of the world.

The high-level meeting was held at the secretariat today afternoon wherein Principal Secretary Revenue and Disaster Management Nikunja Bihari Dhal outlined the issues and Joint Director Census, Government of India Pravakar Barad presented the proposal for discussion.

Looking into different dimensions of the proposal, Padhi directed to make the whole census operation complete and accurate. He emphasized on complete coverage of all houses and accurate enumeration of all the people.

It was decided in the meeting that this time one specially designed mobile app will be adopted for enumeration to make it more accurate and real-time. Tehsildars were asked to update and certify the maps of the villages in the respect of their Tehsils.

It was also decided that the District Magistrates would function as Principal Census Officers and the Additional District Magistrates would be designated as District Census Officer in their respective districts.

The Census would be carried on in two phases. In 1st phase, there would be house listing and housing census and in the second phase there would be population enumeration.

It was decided to complete both the phases tentatively by March, 2021. Unlike previous Censuses, this time tehsil wise enumeration would be done instead of police station wise enumeration.

Further, the meeting decided that pre-testing activities of the Census techniques would be conducted in three representative places of the state. These are Pattamundai in Kendrapara district, Puintala in Bolangir district and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation.

Joint Director Barad said that the pretesting would be done through mobile app. It would start from 12th August, 2019 and would be completed by 30th September, 2019 within which the whole census operation would be done on sampling basis using both the mobile app and paper mode.

Bihar: Land of Rich Cultural Heritage

Source- hindustantimes.com

Geography

Bihar has hot summers and cool winters. It has a vast stretch of fertile plain drained by the River Ganga, including its northern tributaries Gandak, Koshi and Bagmati that regularly flood parts of the plains. Other rivers in the state are Falgu, Ghaghra, Durgawati, Sone, Punpun, and Karmanasa. Central parts of Bihar have some small hills, for example the Rajgir hills near the city of Rajgir.

Language

Hindi is the official language of the state, while Urdu is the second official language in 15 districts of the state. Maithili (including its dialect Bajjika), Bhojpuri, Angika and Magadhi are also widely spoken in this state.

Culture

Madhubani art, a form of painting that is world famous, is practised in the Mithila region of the state. Maithili music too orginates from the same region. The classical music in Bihar is a form of the Hindustani classical music. Gaya is another centre of excellence in classical music, particularly of the Tappa and Thumri styles. The Bihari thali consists of rice, roti, pickle, chutney, lentils and milk products. Llitti Chokha is a popular fast food.

Chatth Puja Almost all civilisations worship the ‘sun god’, but it has a unique form in Bihar. Chatth Puja is the only occasion where the setting sun is worshipped. For this four-day festival, people maintain sanctity and purity from even a month ahead.

Plant and animal life

Banyan, peepal, and palmyra palm trees are found in abundance. The forest regions are home to species of large mammals like Bengal tigers, leopards and elephants. Crocodiles are abundant along the Kosi river.

landmarks

Mahabodhi Temple, Takht Sri Patna Sahib, Nalanda University ruins, Vishwa Shanti Stupa, Rajgir, Golghar, Vikramshila ruins.

Famous people

India’s first President Rajendra Prasad, shehnai maestro and Bharat Ratna Bismillah Khan, social reformer Jayapraksh Narayan, poet Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’, politician Jagjivan Ram, and actors Manoj Bajpayee and Shatrughan Sinha.

Railway stations and airports

Main railway stations are Patna, Gaya, Muzaffarpur, Hajipur, Barauni, Samastipur, Chappra, Darbhanga. Airports are in Patna and Gaya.

Major cities

Arrah, Aurangabad, Bagusarai, Bhagalpur, Bihar Sharif, Chappra, Darbhanga, Dehri, Gaya, Jehanabad, Katihar, Motihari, Patna, Purnia and Siwan.

Parliament nod for central rule in J&K, key reservation bill

Source: hindustantimes.com

The government’s approach to managing strife in the state of Jammu and Kashmir will be guided by former prime minister, the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s approach of “Jamhooriyat (democracy), Insaniyat (humanity), and Kashmiriyat (the spirit of Kashmir)”, home minister Amit Shah said in the Rajya Sabha on Monday during a discussion on the state. At the end of the debate, the Upper House adopted a resolution to extend President’s Rule in J&K by six months, and passed a bill to ensure 3% reservations in jobs and education for people living near the International Border.

But the velvet glove of Vajpayee’s approach would also include an iron hand, Shah said in the Rajya Sabha, promising a tit-for-tat response to anyone trying to disrupt peace in the state. “They will be given a response in their language.”

In the course of the discussion, Shah added that assembly elections would be held in the state on the Election Commission’s advice and the government would not delay the polls “even by a day.”

During the debate, the leader of Opposition in the House Ghulam Nabi Azad said the government’s zero-tolerance policy didn’t seem to be working as attacks against security forces had spiralled during the last five years. “If you have zero tolerance, how come there have been 16 attacks including Pathankot, Nagrota and Uri,” he asked.

“When it comes to assembly elections, the government is hesitant. You want to run the government without accountability,” Azad added.

During his speech, Shah went on to elaborate on each aspect of his government’s policy regarding the state.

He spoke of the end of Sufi traditions and Kashmiri pandits being driven away from the state. “Were Sufi saints not a part of Kashmiriyat? Were Kashmiri Pandits not a part of Kashmiriyat? If we talk about Kashmiriyat today, we have to think of them too. A time will come when the Pandits and the Sufi saints will offer prayers alongside at the Kheer Bhawani temple,” he said.

He said the concept of Jamhooriyat was not limited to electing MLAs. “For 70 years, 40,000 people who could have become sarpanchs were sitting at home.

We have taken Jamhooriyat to the villages,” he said. He asked the Congress why panchayat and municipal elections were not held before and why democracy in the state be restricted to “just three families”.

Speaking about Insaniyat, he said that under President’s Rule, schools were restarted, bureaucrats ordered to go to villages to take schemes forward, and residents were provided with electricity, toilets and food.

“We want development in the Valley. The Valley is ours and we want people to prosper like the rest of India. But we will not tolerate any separatist movement and terrorism. Terrorists who do not want to join with India have no place in the government’s scheme of things. They will face severe action and difficulties,” he said. Unlike in the past, foreign and defence policies have been segregated keeping national security at the core, he said, while talking of the 2016 surgical strikes and the Balakot strikes. “We want peace with the world but there cannot be peace with those who do not respect our borders,” he said.

Responding to a question from some members on the government’s continued criticism of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s handling of the Kashmir situation, Shah asked why Nehru agreed to ceasefire when a third of Kashmir was with Pakistan, why India went to the United Nations after the instrument of accession was signed, and why a plebiscite was required. “Was it not a mistake? Will we not learn from our mistakes?” If the Kashmir problem has not been solved from 1947 to 2019, surely it is time to go for a new approach, he added.

Azad accused the government of using President’s Rule as a ploy to run the state from New Delhi. “Stop running the government from Delhi. That will be the biggest confidence-building measure,” he said.

Shah dismissed the allegations in his detailed, one-hour long reply to the five-hour discussion on two bills. “We have no drought of governments. We are there in 16 states. We have no desire to rule through the President’s Rule,” the minister said.

Responding to the criticism that if elections could be held for panchayats and Lok Sabha, why couldn’t they be held for the assembly, Shah said security forces had their reservations about being able to provide security to more than 1,000 contestants and had conveyed it to the Election Commission.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2019 will allow people living near the International Border to benefit from a 3% reservation that was so far available only to those living along the Line of Control and Line of Actual Control. Shah said this would benefit more than 350,000 people living in 435 villages scattered across the districts of Jammu, Kathua and Sambha.

Former chairman of the National Commission for Minorities and former divisional commissioner of Kashmir Wajahat Habibullah said there was no choice but to extend President’s Rule at this point. He said the people living close to the International Border faced the same vulnerabilities that those near LoC faced and the reservation bill was a good move.

Politics of name and colour costs exchequer Rs 5.50 crore in Rajasthan

Source: newindianexpress.com

JAIPUR: Shakespeare has asked, “what’s in a name?” But politics over the name of two former PMs of the country, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Rajiv Gandhi, have come to haunt the people of Rajasthan financially. Gehlot Government had changed the name of Atal Seva Kendra to Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendra again which now has cost the exchequer crores.

After coming to power, Gehlot Government had announced in January that government sewa centres at 9894 Gram panchayat and 295 Panchayat samitis will undergo a name change. At the time it was said that all the other Seva centres around the country have the name Rajiv Gandhi whereas the previous BJP government had unnecessarily changed the names in the state to Atal Seva Kendra.

Sources in the department say that around 2000 rupees have been spent per gram Panchayat and 5000 Rupees have been spent per Panchayat samiti. The total cost has come to 5.50 crore rupees.

Earlier between 2008 to 2013, Ashok Gehlot Government had kept the name of these centres as Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendra which at that time had costed Rs 1.5 crore.

In 2013 when BJP government came to power the name was again changed to Atal Seva Kendra which costed 1 crore 85 lakh rupees. Currently, 2 crore rupees have been spent with the name changing back to Rajiv Gandhi from Atal. Sources also say that there is no separate provision made in the budget for this.

Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot had earlier said that both Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Rajiv Gandhi are Bharat Ratnas and they wanted to keep the names of both of them. ” We wanted the name to be Rajiv Gandhi Atal Seva Kendra. But the Supreme Court has said that in these programs no name can be added or subtracted. As such, in the law, the name is Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendra. This is the reason why we had to keep that name”, he added.
BJP says that in comparison to Rajiv Gandhi, Atal Behari Vajpayee was a greater leader and it is not right to change his name. ” If they wanted to change the name, they should’ve done for other projects. This shows the amateurish behaviour of the Government. ” Said Vasudev Devnani, former Education minister in BJP government”

The names shouldn’t be changed with the changing of the Governments. To change the name of a popular leader like Atalji is unfortunate. If Atalji’s name had stayed, it would have saved the government money and started a new tradition as well.” Added Devnani

While the politics of name has increased the expenditure of the government, the politics of colour have saved some extra crores. The cycles given to the school going girls by the education department will now be painted black from the saffron colour, which will save 8.50 crore Rupees. In 2007, the BJP government had changed the colour to saffron. The change of colour to saffron and putting a basket in the front increases the cost of a bicycle by 200 to 300 rupees.

Not just the colour of the cycles but the name of the RSS idealogue Deendayal Upadhyaya has been removed from the scholarships given by the education board. In fact, his name has been removed from all previous paperwork in the Government which are now redundant and lakhs of rupees have been wasted due to this.

“BJP had made education an RSS propaganda laboratory. The coloured cycles saffron and made it expensive. Now they are coming out with baseless statements against us”, said Govind Singh Dotasara, State Minister of Education, Rajasthan.

MHA junior Ministers get homes in Lutyens’ Delhi

Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

New Delhi: After Union home minister Amit Shah was allotted the late prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Krishna Menon Marg residence in central Delhi, ministers of state Kishan G Reddy and Nityanand Rai, too, have been allocated bungalows in Lutyens’ Delhi.

While Reddy has been allotted 20 Tughlak Crescent Road, presently being occupied by former MoS Jayant Sinha, Rai has been allotted 4 Lodhi Estate where Trinamool Congress MP Dinesh Trivedi is staying, officials told ET.

However, it may take time before they move in because both Sinha and Trivedi have asked for some time to vacate the bungalows, officials said.

Shah is also yet to move into his new bungalow. He is currently staying at his 11Akbar Road and is expected to move after completion of renovation work.

Rai is said to be operating from his residence at MS Flats near RML Hospital while Reddy is staying at Telangana Bhavan.

The home minister had last week allocated all 23 divisions of the ministry except Intelligence Bureau, cabinet matters and issues related to president’s secretariat, to his two deputies, with Reddy getting bulk of the divisions including Jammu and Kashmir, North East and Left-Wing Extremism.

Rai was allocated centrestate division, Police-I that looks after transfer postings of IPS officers, and foreigners’ divisions which is responsible for FCRA licenses of NGOs, among others.

Rai was allocated centrestate division, Police-I that looks after transfer postings of IPS officers, and foreigners’ divisions which is responsible for FCRA licenses of NGOs, among others.

Explaining the rationale behind the allocation, a senior ministry official told ET, “Reddy is senior to Rai in the council of ministers.

This was the prime reason that he has been allocated the major divisions.

This was also the reasons why former MoS (home) Hansraj G Ahir was in-charge of LWE and Kashmir affairs while his colleague Kiren Rijiju had other divisions.”

Shah, who is on a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir, is expected to get a detailed presentation of each division of the ministry on his return, officials said. He and his two juniors will be informed about the work performed by each department at the presentation that will start on Friday with centre-state and disaster management divisions and will continue on Saturday, an official said.