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Showing posts from September, 2016

Wagtail Words & Sackcloth Sentences

BY R.K.MISRA Soar or sink,words always return to haunt. Narendra Modi’s utterances were honey to hungry indian ears as he tore into the UPA government to secure a resounding mandate to rule the country. Two years at the helm and the very same words are boomeranging with a scarring tenacity. Moreso after the Uri unfrocking. Words are heady nectar on the way up and poisoned darts hurtling down. The social media, though open to manipulation, remains a fair barometer of the ebb and tide of mass mood. Masterful with words Modi would mock the reticent Manmohan with sarcastic chivalry after every border incident or terror onslaught during the decade long UPA rule. Singh is silent but the social media has taken on itself the job of showing him the mirror. Whats app and facebook are choc-a-bloc with clips of the present prime minister’s myriad feisty posturing of how to deal with the Pakistan promoted terror machine. A TV interview jibe where he spoke of answering the neighbou

The Booze Benchmark :Gujarat's Hype & Hypocrisy

BY R.K.MISRA  If pride and prejudices are pesky, both hype and hypocrisy hurt.  Gujarat  and it’s ‘model’ have been the toast of the Indian season ever since it’s Chief Minister , Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014.This includes it’s liquor prohibition policy which has  adherents like Bihar now where Nitish Kumar came to power after knocking the wind out of  Modi’s sails! Billowing in the political clouds ever since, are propounded perceptions of a ‘dry’ India. Kumar could do with a closer look at adversary Modi’s ‘model’ state before giving wings to his national vision. Proud and boastful  of the fact that it has been the only state in the country which was born ‘dry’ and continues to remain so till date, Gujarat’s much hyped liquor ‘totalitarianism’ took a humpty-dumpty like fall last week when over 20 people died after consuming hooch near Surat. What has now become a standard drill after decades of practice,is in place. Newly anointed Chief Minister Vijay R

The Homing Power Pigeon !

BY R.K.MISRA Indian politics oscillates between extending poles and impending polls .The first entails constantly shifting markers for political expediency and the second triggers a flurry of activity designed to entice as elections near .Thus the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his home state on august 30,2016 makes for interesting political interpretation. One of the most  high profile chief ministers who ruled the state for over a decade and a quarter, this is his first visit to Gujarat to address a public meeting after becoming prime minister over two years ago. In the interim he had been here for the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors summit soon after taking over in Delhi, the visit of the Chinese president and a bureaucratic engagement in Kutch. All the three visits were meant to showcase his managerial prowess ,twice to a global audience and once to his indigenous managers. It was in September 2012, just before the Vidhan Sabha elections in Gujarat that chief