PM Modi has to break his silence Now
The BJP led by Modi used rising petrol prices as their most powerful weapon to attack the UPA government in the run up to 2014 elections. They added generous amounts of fuel to this petrol fire and spoke at rallies at lengths. Today, those speeches are coming back to bite him.
They are more than enough to set the agenda to question Modi on his misrule. It seems like the Modi of those days is questioning the Modi of these days. Many people, thinkers and writers had said Modi during his initial days as PM, oozed ‘positive energy’ when he addressed the nation for the first time from Lal Quila or Red Fort.
People waited for their Acche din with great enthusiasm. But as days rolled by, disillusionment set in, owing to rising prices of fuel. People had to be content with Modi’s theatrical performance of speeches. Now people began to understand positive energy cannot run their vehicles and that we cannot cook even a grain of rice in our kitchens with this. And yet, the bhakts of Modi are eternal optimists. “He may have made all these harsh decisions with some logic. Why can’t we wait a bit more?” this seems to be the basis of faith many middle class bhakts are nourishing.
Many Modi supporters are unable to digest the fact that their choice of a leader was an inappropriate one, in view of the collapsing economy, and rupee biting the dust against the dollar day in and out. Their enthusiasm has been proved damaging and this is hurting them more than ever in just four years’ time.
They now know good speeches are not about best administrative decisions. Yet there are some who’d claim they’ll vote for Modi even if the petrol price touches Rs 100 per litre. Their intention is to make a person bigger than the country.
We have reached 2018. But when we look back at 2013, we do feel we were cheated. There are hardly any economists in Modi administration. Instead of them, we are given Baba Ramdev, Ravishankar guruji and the likes who speak for him.
Sri Sri Ravishankar of Art of Living had said if Modi becomes PM, the value of rupee will become Rs 40 per dollar. Ramdev had told his young disciples that they’d get fuel for Rs 35 per litre. The same people are paying Rs 86 to buy a litre of fuel.
Now everyone in central government is running away from commenting on the rupee value that’s continuing to collapse against the dollar. Hence they are choosing many unimportant issues to comment on. People have stopped commenting on these issues as well since they fear the reaction of the government for such criticism.
With GDP touching 8.2% of increase in the current fiscal year, the government had entered into a celebratory mood. At the same time, there was a decrease of one percent in job creation. Between 2017-18 July, there was a reduction of 1.4 per cent in the number of people with employment. There has been 1.2% collapse between July 2017 and August 2018 in the employment rate, which would continue into the next quarter as well as warned by Mahesh Vyas of Indian Economy Pvt Ltd (CMIE) sometime ago.
The jobs had begun to erode from the demonetization phase itself in November 2017. Lakhs of people who had lost jobs had moved away from skilled work sector and have entered into unorganized work sector. The jobs don’t exist anymore.
Most of them have now found alternate ways of earning a livelihood with lathi wielding gau raksha and moral policing jobs. The government is attempting to shut mouth of those who are questioning, with promises of Sardar Patel statue or Shivaji Park or Ramayana Museum.
The state is also trying to shut their mouths by providing concocted logic on economy that makes no sense. Sometime ago, a central minister said rupee is fine, but the problem lies with the dollar is. Another central minister Jayant Sinha said the plane fares are lesser than that of autos.
Niti Ayog Chairman Rajiv Kumar said the government may demonetize once again if need to be. One cannot even imagine what could happen to the people of this country who have suffered through one demonetization alone.
Congress has called for Bharat Bandh. There is already another Bandh that’s in force thanks to Mr Modi. It has become inevitable for people to put up with this Bandh imposed by the government since they do not have jobs. The PM needs to speak now. His silence is continuing to inflict more damage on people.
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A strong magnitude 6.1 earthquake shakes Indonesia's Java Island, felt in Jakarta
Jakarta, Apr 27: A strong magnitude 6.1 earthquake shook the southern part of Indonesia's main island of Java on Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of injury or significant property damage.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck 102 kilometers (63 miles) south of Banjar city at a depth of 68.3 kilometers (42.4 miles). There was no tsunami warning.
High-rises in the capital Jakarta swayed for around a minute and two-story homes shook strongly in the West Java provincial capital of Bandung and in Jakarta's satellite cities of Depok, Tangerang, Bogor and Bekasi. The quake was also felt in other cities in West Java, Yogyakarta and East Java province, according to Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency.
The agency warned of possible aftershocks.
Earthquakes are frequent across the sprawling archipelago nation, but they are rarely felt in Jakarta.
Indonesia, a seismically active archipelago of 270 million people, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on major geological faults known as the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”
A magnitude 5.6 earthquake in 2022 killed at least 602 people in West Java's Cianjur city. It was the deadliest in Indonesia since a 2018 quake and tsunami in Sulawesi killed more than 4,300 people.
In 2004, an extremely powerful Indian Ocean quake set off a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia's Aceh province.
