Atal Bihari Vajpayee Archives

Invoking Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s ‘Indigenous’ Dream, PM Modi Says UP Will Become One of the Biggest Hubs of Defence Manufacturing

Source:news18.com

Lucknow: India is eyeing defence export of USD 5 billion in the next five years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday, highlighting the measures taken by his government to boost manufacturing and woo investors to set up a base in the country.

Inaugurating the 11th edition of DefExpo here, Modi said a country of the size of India cannot entirely depend on imports and added the number of defence licenses issued in the last five years has risen to 460 from 210 in 2014, the year he first came to power.

India is building several defence equipment like artillery guns, aircraft carriers, submarines, light-combat aircraft, and combat helicopters, he said. “Today India is capable of manufacturing Artillar guns, Air Craft Carriers, Submarines, Light Combat helicopters and other defence related equipments. Our main aim for next five years is to increase defence export by 5 Bilion Dollars in next five years,” Modi said.

India is not only a major market globally but a vast opportunity for the world as well, he said, asserting that Uttar Pradesh is going to be one of the biggest defence manufacturing hubs in India. Lack of proper policy initiative in last several decades made India the biggest importer of defence platforms, he added.

Modi cited misuse of technology, terrorism and cyber threat as challenges facing the world and said defence forces are eyeing new technology considering new threats. India is not behind others, he added. He said a roadmap had been finalised to use application of artificial intelligence in defence sector.

The prime minister said the creation of the post of Chief of Defence Staff and the Department of Military Affairs will boost the overall defence production. “We are going to enhance our presence in the outer space in coming years,” he said, adding that the DRDO is putting up effective protection for India’s assets in outer space created by ISRO.

“Our defence preparedness is not aimed at any country as India is a reliable contributor to world peace. It’s our responsibility to ensure security of not only India but countries in the neighbourhood as well,” he said. He invited foreign defence manufacturers to “come and invest in India.

Modi further said, “This time more than 1000 companies are participating in the Defence Expo from over 150 countries across the world. Also defence ministers from more than 30 countries and hundreds of business leaders have come to participate in this event today.”

Five BJP backbones who departed in last one year

Source: afternoonvoice.com

The ruling BJP won landslide victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and returned to power for second consecutive term at the Centre. But the party lost five tall leaders in past one year which is irreparable loss. These five great leaders were Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manohar Parrikar, Ananth Kumar, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley. The BJP and the entire country will always remember their contributions to the nation.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born on December 25, 1924, in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. He died on August 16, 2018, in New Delhi. He served as the prime minister of India thrice.

Vajpayee was first elected to parliament in 1957 as a member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) which was forerunner of the BJP. In 1977 the BJS joined three other parties to form the Janata Party which led a government that lasted until July 1979. As foreign minister in the Janata government, Vajpayee earned a reputation for improving relations with Pakistan and China. In 1980, following a split in the Janata Party, Vajpayee helped the BJS to reorganise itself as the BJP. In 1992 he was one of the few Hindu leaders to speak out against the destruction of the historic mosque at Ayodhya.

Vajpayee was sworn in as prime minister in May 1996 but was in office only 13 days, after failing to attract support from other parties. In early 1998 he again became prime minister, in elections in which the BJP won a record number of seats, but he was forced to make a shaky alliance with regional parties. In 1999 the BJP increased its seats in parliament and came back to power.

Manohar Parrikar

Former Defence Minister and the four times Chief Minister of Goa, Manohar Parrikar passed away on March 17, 2019, at the age of 63. He was born on December 13, 1955. He was the Chief Minister of Goa since 14 March 2017. Parrikar was battling prolonged illness. He was diagnosed with a pancreatic cancer. A graduate in metallurgical engineering from IIT-Bombay in 1978, he was the first IITian to serve as the legislator of a state.

Parrikar proposed the name of Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate before 2013 BJP parliamentary elections convention in Goa. He served in the National Democratic Alliance government under Prime MinisterNarendra Modi as Defence Minister of India from 2014 to 2017. He was a former member of Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh. Parrikar was the Defence Minister in 2016 when India conducted a surgical strike on terror launch pads across the LoC, days after the terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir.

Ananth Kumar

Ananth Kumar was Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers. He was born in 1959 in Bangalore. Ananth Kumar was influenced by the RSS from his childhood and joined the ABVP, the BJP’s student wing. During the Emergency, he was imprisoned. He was later elected ABVP’s State Secretary and then its National Secretary in 1985. He joined the BJP and was nominated state president of the BJP Yuva Morcha. He was then made BJP National Secretary in 1996.

In 1996, he was elected from Bangalore South Lok Sabha constituency and has been elected from the same seat six consecutive times. In 1998 he was inducted into the Union Cabinet headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the Minister for Civil Aviation. In 1999, he became a Cabinet minister in the NDA government. He handled various ministries like Tourism, Sports & Youth Affairs, Culture, Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation.

He became the President of the Karnataka state unit of BJP in 2003 and led the BJP to become the single largest party in the Legislative Assembly and won the highest number of the Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka in 2004. In 2004, he was appointed as the National General Secretary of the BJP.

Sushma Swaraj

Sushma Swaraj, a veteran leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and former Minister of External Affairs in the Narendra Modi government in its first term, died on August 6, 2019, following a heart attack. She was 67. She breathed her last in New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

She was also the Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs from May 26, 2014, to January 7, 2016. She represented Madhya Pradesh’s Vidisha constituency in the 16th Lok Sabha. She had joined the BJS after the Emergency of 1975. Swaraj had won her first election at the age of 25 in 1977 from the Ambala Cantonment Assembly constituency. In July 1977, she had become a Cabinet Minister in the Janata Party Government under Chief Minister Devi Lal. She taken got the position of the state president of Janata Party (Haryana) in 1979. Swaraj was also the Education Minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party–Lok Dal coalition government in Haryana during 1987-1990.

A Cabinet minister in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Swaraj had held the portfolios of Health and Family Welfare, Information and Broadcasting at different junctures. She was the Chief Minister of Delhi from October 13, 1998 to December 3, 1998. In November 2018, Sushma Swaraj had announced that she would not contest the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 due to health reasons.

Arun Jaitley

Arun Jaitley was born on 28 December 1952 in Delhi. Until 2014, Jaitley had never contested any direct elections. That year, he was BJP candidate in Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency, but lost to Amarinder Singh of Congress. Jaitley was selected by newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi to be Minister of Finance, Minister for Corporate Affairs and Minister of Defence in his cabinet. With Jaitley as FM, the Modi government was able to take several key economic decisions like demonetisation and GST. In Jaitley’s stewardship, the Modi government merged the railway budget with the general Budget. Moreover, the decision to advance the date of the general budget to February 1 was also taken with Jaitley as FM. GST went under several tax-slab revisions and Jaitley maneuvered them efficiently. He also introduced Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code to resolve the issues with companies that were turning insolvent.

Kashmiri Pandits hail amendment of Article 370

Source: thehindu.com

Kashmiri Pandits, displaced from the Valley in the 1990s, on Monday hailed the scrapping of Article 370 of the Constitution as a “historic event” and hoped it would pave the way for return to their homeland with honour and dignity.

Global Kashmiri Pandit Diaspora (GKPD), a body representing the community across the world, said the decision cements territorial, political and cultural unity of the Indian Union.

“August 5, 2019 will go down in the history of the country as a day that has put the lasting seal on the sovereignty of Parliament over the entire Indian Union,” it said in a statement.

“The draft bill presented by Home Minister Amit Shah in Parliament vindicates the ideals of our great leaders like Syama Prasad Mukherjee, Deendayal Upadhyaya, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and others who dedicated or sacrificed their lives for the integrity and sovereignty of India,” the GKPD said.

This is for the first time that the exiled community has heaved a sigh of relief that its identity, culture and symbols of heritage will find full protection and perpetuation under the Union territory dispensation, the statement said.

“With the abolition of Article 370, the Government of India will be able to bring Jammu and Kashmir nearer to the rest of the nation,” said Manoj Bhan, president of the Jammu and Kashmir Vichaar Manch.

The Kashmiri Pandit community hopes that the Modi government will chalk out a road map of their return to the Valley soon, he said.

“We want a separate settlement in the Valley where all Kashmiri Pandits, who borne the brunt of forced exodus, can live together,” Mr. Bhan said.

August 5 will go down as Kashmir Liberation Day. Liberation from dynastic rule, liberation from corruption, liberation from an unjust State. Liberation for every part of this diverse State. Liberation for all,” K.N. Pandita said.

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.

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.

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.

Modi stuns Congress in Parliament, does what they least expected him to do

Source: financialexpress.com

Expect the unexpected when the man in question is Narendra Modi. Known to spring up surprises more often than not, there was anticipation ahead of Prime Minister’s maiden address in Parliament after returning to power with a stronger mandate. A day earlier, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had drawn a “gandi naali” analogy to target PM Modi. Contrary to expectations that Modi would shred the Congress leader in his speech over the lowly attack, the PM chose otherwise.

Of course, that did not deter him from launching an all-out attack against the Opposition, particularly the Congress, over a number of other issues. In his over 65-minute-long address, PM Modi did not spare the Congress for ignoring the contribution of former PMs like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh. He took repeated digs at the Gandhi-Nehru family for its sense of entitlement and absolute disconnect with roots and also took a shot at Rahul Gandhi’s foreign jaunt immediately after the elections were over. “Even we wanted to relax after running around during elections for so long. But we do not think that way.”

The PM also reminded the Congress of the Emergency over how it crushed India’s soul on the day 44 years ago. Responding to a question by Chowdhury a day earlier on why Sonia and Rahul Gandhi were not in jail, when, as per the PM’s own claims, they are neck-deep in corruption, the PM said: “There is no Emergency in the country. Enjoy if you are out on bail.” The Prime Minister also pointed out how the Congress leadership had lost its connection with the masses, and in its lust for power even refused to acknowledge or appreciate the contribution of its own leaders outside the Gandhi family.

Yet, when Congress leaders emerged from the Parliament after the session, they claimed a moral victory. For, at the end of his address, the PM did what the Congress would never have expected him to do. Concluding his speech in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, Modi quoted India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said the Congress has scored a “great victory” as it had compelled Modi to quote Pandit Nehru’s words in his speech.

“I think we have scored a great success that at least the Prime Minister, who used to previously remain reluctant to recognise any Congress leader, was compelled to quote Nehru at the fag end of his speech. So, I think this was our great victory,” IANS quoted him as saying.

On Tuesday, Modi quoted an extract from a speech made by Nehru in 1951 at the release of the Congress manifesto for the first Lok Sabha polls in the country. “The biggest lesson to the world from India is that here, duties come first. From these duties emerge the rights. In today’s world, everyone talks about their rights and conveniences. Hardly anyone talks about duties. This is the reason for the friction in the world. It is true that we fight for our rights, but if we forget our duties, these rights will also not remain with us,” the Prime Minister told the Lok Sabha, taking his time to reveal that the “mahapurush” whom he had quoted was none other than Jawaharlal Nehru, urging members to understand his wish and see if it can be taken forward.

Congress has good reason to be surprised though one may doubt its contributions in “compelling” the Prime Minister to quote Nehru. The Prime Minister and the BJP are seen to be promoting the contributions of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Mahatma Gandhi towards nation-building more than Nehru. The government’s push to honour all Prime Ministers at the Nehru Memorial has been a bone of contention between the BJP and the Congress. The grand old party has also often accused Modi of being opposed to the idea of pluralism and inclusivity that Nehru stood for, besides blaming the former of destroying institutions that Nehru built. Of course, praise for Nehru from arguably his biggest critic, is bound to delight them.

While the Congress is playing it smart by claiming victory for Modi’s choice of words, the Prime Minister has displayed that he is staying true to his promise of taking the Opposition along. There are some bills that still need the Opposition’s support to pass muster in the Rajya Sabha and the PM’s praise of Nehru could be an olive branch to the Congress. Also, by praising Nehru, the Congress’ tallest leader, could also puncture the Opposition’s charge of disrespecting their icons. In either case, it is Modi who has emerged as the smarter politician yet again.