In the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, the world is not as much dismayed at the deaths due to the infection as much as it is at the deaths due to hunger. 

The brutal case of rape and murder that took place in Hatharas, Uttar Pradesh, is being compared to the ‘Nirbhaya’ incident in Delhi. But the Hathras incident appears more terrible and barbaric than the Nirbhaya case. The latter at least did not have any social or political dimensions and no attempt was made to shield the accused.

“Does your wife work?” “No, she stays at home.” Such conversations are common in India. Women’s management of the home and household chores is not accorded ‘the status of a job.’ Only if a woman ventures out to work in an office, she is regarded as employed. If she manages her home, raises children, cooks, and manages the household, she is regarded as unemployed.

Today is Gandhi Jayanti. Mahatma Gandhi introduced the values of ‘Rama Rajya’ in administration and brought them to the fore. ‘If a woman is able to walk freely on the streets at midnight without any fear, it means that Rama Rajya has been established’, was Gandhi’s stand. In a mockery of the grand Ram Mandir being constructed in Uttar Pradesh, a Dalit woman has been brutally raped and murdered.

The verdict in the Babri Masjid demolition case has been delivered on predictable lines. When the Supreme Court  ordered earlier in favour of the construction of the Ram Mandir on the site where the Masjid once stood, it offered a whiff of what it is to be expected in the demolition conspiracy case.

The images of hundreds of labourers all across the country walking from cities back to their villages in blistering heat without food and water and having lost their livelihoods in the aftermath of the nation-wide lockdown declared by the Modi government is still haunting the nation.

Two forms of ‘Mann Ki Baath’  are being heard in the country. One is the anguished ‘Mann Ki Baath’  of farmers and migrant labourers. The other is the ‘Mann Ki Baath’ that resembles the speech of a primary school boy delivered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Farmers all across the country are hitting the streets and protesting.

The decision to cancel Question Hour in Parliament has become a subject of discussion in the media. But people have not been specially concerned about this as the government not been giving the right answer to any question. In many instances, the government provided questions as the answers to questions! Even when the government answered some questions, the country’s media did not show any interest in them. Besides, when the answers to all the questions is just one name, Modi, the government must have realized that there is no need to waste time by allowing time for questions and must have done away with Question Hour.