Why can't Dronacharya Award be named after Ekalavya?
Can anyone rename the child of another person and claim it as one's own? But the BJP's habit of trying to claim the child of others as its own without having to undergo the pangs of labour pain, is reaching new heights. This is a trade without any investment. It is a fact that framing new schemes, implementing them and naming them after some leader, takes a lot of time, effort as well as investment. Instead of having to undergo all these hassles, what happens when the names of schemes are simply changed? The Union Government which has failed to chalk out a strategy to steer the nation out of the severe financial distress, has now chosen the path of "Name Change" just to throw dust at people's eyes.
Such an initiative was first formally launched in Uttar Pradesh by the state's Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. There is a history behind the name of any city, town or monument. A government which tries to change such names is in a way trying to erase the history of those places. There is no link between these name changes as well as the challenges faced by the nation at present. Neither is this name changing exercise essential for the nation. The exercise of changing names also have their social, political and economic contours.
In the past, the government uplifted those behind poverty line or the BPL card holders by this very name change exercise. Changing the yardstick for identifying the poor is also in a way equal to name change. If the government decides to term those earning even a meagre Rs 35 a day as rich, then the nation will be full of rich people. The government uplifted the BPL card holders of the nation in phases through such a change. Later, there began a name changing spree of towns and cities and thereby taking the nation towards the glory of the past. May be in the next few years, the Taj Mahal monument may even become Tejomahal. The government probably is trying to take India towards the Golden Era of Vedic times. People on their part are forgetting the reality by swaying in the name change euphoria.
Recently, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award was renamed as Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. The government has said it was honouring Dhyanchand by doing so. But in reality more than honouring Dhyanchand, the government had the malicious intention of offending the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Sports has the power to unite people by transcending all barriers. It is regretful that the government is trying to break this unity through such sort of politics. Rajeev Gandhi is a leader who led the nation towards computer rage. He ensured the right to vote to those who completed 18 years. He was the leader who made India gear up to face the 21st Century, a leader who had great concern for the youth and who sacrificed his life for the cause of the nation.
If the then government had named the Award after him, then there might be a reason behind it. If the present government had announced a new award and named it after Dhyanchand, then it would have been really great. Or else the recently inaugurated world's largest stadium at Ahmedabad could have very well been named after Dhyanchand instead of Prime Minister Modi. But by sacrificing the name of an award merely owing to political rivalry, the government has insulted both the sport as well as Dhyanchand. Some of the names given for awards in the field of sports is really a mockery of the awards. eg. the Dronacharya award given for sports coaches and the Arjuna award for sports persons. Everyone is aware how Dronacharya who taught archery to the Kshatriya children asked Ekalavya his thumb as Gurudakshina for learning the skill secretly. Dronacharaya who taught only to the upper castes can never be an ideal name for the award for a sports coach. Similarly Arjuna who killed Karna by deceit can never be a role model for sports persons. It is not coincidental that today there are many people with the mindset of Dronacharya in the sports field.
Therefore the Ekalavya Award given by Karnataka government must be given at the national level. The Dronacharya Award must be renamed as Ekalavya Award with the hope that the corruption and casteism in the sports field will reduced. Our sports field is filled with more Dronacharyas than Ekalavyas. Such Dronacharayas themselves are a hindrance to excellence.
In Karnataka the Indira canteens are in news. Though the late prime minister faced several allegations. She made politics in the ‘name of the poor’ and not in the name of God. She spoke about feeding the poor and also ensured Geni rights holders got the land. She also contributed much towards the emancipation of Dalits. A big contribution by then CM Siddaramaiah were the Indira Canteens which fed thousands of people during Covid times.
The need of the hour is to further improve the amenities in these canteens rather than change of name.It would be better for the present government to frame a new scheme and then give a name of its choice instead of renaming the brainchild of former CM Siddaramaiah.
If such name changing trend continues, then the day may not be far off when the government may change the name of Corona and claim that the state is free from the virus.
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SIR in Gujarat: More than 17 lakh deceased voters found on electoral rolls
Ahmedabad (PTI): The ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Gujarat has revealed that more than 17 lakh deceased voters were still included in the existing voter list across the state, a release by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has stated.
According to the release issued on Thursday, the SIR exercise started in Gujarat on November 4 with booth-level officers (BLOs) distributing enumeration forms in their designated areas.
The campaign will continue till December 11.
"In the last one month, enumeration forms have been distributed to more than five crore voters registered in the 2025 electoral roll. In most of the 33 districts, 100 per cent of the distribution has been completed. Work on digitising the returned forms is currently underway. So far, the digitisation work has been completed in 12 out of 182 assembly constituencies," it said.
These include Dhanera and Tharad of Banaskantha district, Limkheda and Dahod (ST) of Dahod district, Bayad of Aravalli district, Dhoraji, Jasdan and Gondal of Rajkot district, Keshod of Junagadh district, Mehmadabad of Kheda district, Khambhat of Anand district and Jalalpore of Navsari district.
Dang district is at the forefront in this work with 94.35 per cent digitisation of the counting forms, said the release.
"During this exercise, it was revealed that 17 lakh deceased voters were still included in the electoral roll across the state. More than 6.14 lakh voters were found absent from their addresses. It has been noticed that more than 30 lakh voters have permanently migrated," the release said.
BLOs found more than 3.25 lakh voters in the "repeated" category, which means that their names figured at more than one place, the release stated.
