Caution: Mind the Gap
Former Union Minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram, writes in The Indian Express, that the results of the five state Assembly elections announced on 3 December showed how 'bi-polar, competitive politics' is alive in India.
"The Congress’ vote share in the four states is 40 per cent (approximately the same as in 2018) which augurs well for electoral democracy. However, the BJP gained in vote share in all four states and won most of the seats in the four capital cities and urban areas. The other good news is that the difference in vote shares is narrow, except in Madhya Pradesh. The gap in Chhattisgarh of 4.04 per cent was due to the shift of tribal votes. Of the 29 seats reserved for ST, BJP won 17 and Congress 11. The gap in Rajasthan of 2.16 per cent was narrower," Chidambaram writes.
P Chidambaram in The Indian Express
A Different Time
R Rajagopal, editor-at-large at The Telegraph, in his column contrasts the ways in which the United States of America and India responded when suspicions of snooping on the pillars of democracy surfaced — in the latter half of the 20th century in America and in the early half of the 21st century in India.
In the US, the Washington Post and its journalists uncovered what is now popularly called the 'Watergate Scandal'. "Like a tenacious bulldog, the newspaper refused to let go of the bone it had sunk its teeth into even when storied competitors smirked. Woodward and Bernstein kept at it for nearly 800 days, hunkering down and digging. Editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katharine Graham stood by their reporters — and stood up to the most vicious occupant of the White House till then, who threatened the Post with “damnable, damnable” problems," Rajagopal writes.
R Rajagopal in The Telegraph
"Yet, quiet flows the Ganga. Not a political leaf has so far as much as stirred, let alone fallen, in India — unlike in America where the Watergate scandal snowballed in two years from a three-column report to a banner headline that screamed “Nixon Resigns”," he continues.
Time To End Reservations
In her column in The Indian Express, senior journalist and columnist Tavleen Singh writes about reservations and the INDIA bloc's pitch for a caste census.
"It is time for all reservations to go. In government jobs, universities, schools, in the army and in our paramilitary forces, all reservations must be scrapped. Enough has been enough for a while now, but because our political leaders find it hard to say this, it does not get said," writes Singh.
Tavleen Singh in The Indian Express
New Star Castes For Politics
In his column in the Times of India (TOI+), sociologist Dipankar Gupta, writes about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech on 3 December after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged victorious in three out of five states which went to polls earlier this year.
Gupta focuses on how the PM "suggested a new four-fold order.
"Instead of Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra, which are separate and hostile entities, he posited a four-fold schema of the underprivileged
– namely, women, farmers, youth and the poor. Unlike the old varna, these categories can easily merge and party together."
Dipankar Gupta in the Times of India
Why India Cannot Do Without The Congress
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor writes about the results of the five state Assembly elections in The New Indian Express. "The post-mortems continue to be written after last weekend’s election results, mostly dismissing the Congress party’s prospects in the forthcoming general elections and announcing that it is finished in the Hindi belt," he says.
Shashi Tharoor in The New Indian Express
In Botched Murder Plot, a Few Tough Questions
In his column in the Hindustan Times, senior journalist Karan Thapar discusses, in eight points, the questions raised by a purported Indian government staffer's allegedly conspired to kill Khalistani leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on US soil. "Unless you believe the recently unsealed American Superseding Indictment is a work of fiction, we need to be concerned about what it reveals," Thapar writes.
Karan Thapar in the Hindustan Times
Marginal Figure
Anup Sinha, former professor of Economics at IIM-Calcutta, writes in The Telegraph about how the role of a teacher in a socialised classroom is being rapidly eclipsed by technology.
"Gone are the days when a young student could contemplate a one-job career with stability and certainty of income. Uncertainty and change have become all-pervasive. Now, a new challenge for a student is to acquire the life skills to navigate this sea of uncertainty. Knowledge is also changing rapidly. Students are being warned that in their careers they would have to acquire the art of rapidly unlearning things they had learnt earlier," he says.
Anup Sinha in The Telegraph
From Archies to ‘The Archies’: Why Must We Wokewash Classics?
In The Indian Express, Jaipur-based lawyer and writer Vagda Galhotra writes about Hindi film director Zoya Akhtar's latest Netflix film The Archies and questions "the need to 'wokewash' problematic storylines to keep the classics alive."
Galhotra writes, "I am aware that I am not the first person to have noted this. There has been plenty of academic ink spilt over decades on how Archie Comics has been problematic in its portrayal of women with evident sexualisation of the female body and the nasty reduced representation of female friendships As I started reading more about it, I learnt of the subtler injustices that academics have noted over decades."
Vagda Galhotra in The Indian Express
Leadership Vacuum Hits INDIA’s Poll Prospects
Mark Tully, in his column in the Hindustan Times, writes about what the results of the recently concluded state Assembly elections mean for the INDIA bloc and its leadership questions.
"A member of Parliament faced at present with the probability of fighting the general elections due within six months under the INDIA bloc’s flag said to me, on Thursday night: 'He hasn’t had the guts to appear in Parliament after the defeat. He’s said nothing about the results. What sort of a politician is he?' The 'He' was Rahul Gandhi," writes Tully.
Mark Tully in the Hindustan Times
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