The expectation of people that the first ‘Mann Ki Baath’ of this year would be in support of the country’s farmers has been dashed. Instead, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried unsuccessfully to mobilize the country against the farmers agitation by his statement that the “nation is pained by the way the National Flag was humiliated on Republic Day.”

Throughout India, a Covaxin revolution is taking place under the leadership of the government. In addition to the distribution of the vaccine, politicians are trying to instill a sense of pride that Covaxin is a ‘Swadeshi’ vaccine. Undoubtedly, it is a matter of pride that the country has produced a vaccine in the face of the Coronavirus that battered the country. But, politicians more than experts are issuing statements about Covaxin.

The Centre is handling the farmers agitation in a very muddled manner. In the beginning, the government humiliated farmers by terming them ‘khalistanis’  and ‘terrorists.’

Many political scientists argue that the incidents that occurred in Washington DC on January 7, 2021, was a blot on the world’s most powerful democracy, the United States of America. Being a democratic country but at the same time, joining hands either overtly or covertly with the world’s most dictatorial states and trying to wield power over other developing and democratic countries,  the US had to witness an incident such as this someday or the other. This is an extension of its interference with other sovereign countries in the garb of democracy.

Atrocities on women constitute a complex and multi-dimensional problem. Atrocities such as rapes and sexual assaults that take place in public spaces are highlighted and discussed. In India, not only roads but homes have also become dangerous for women. Men in the role of husbands are now completely free to assault women in any form and even rape them. Assaults that take place in public become public information and sometimes, the accused may get a jail term. But the assaults that take place at homes are dismissed as domestic affairs. Many a time, a woman is not even aware that she has been raped. Throughout the period of pandemic and lockdown, women’s issues were not discussed as much as the issues of migrant laborers and farmers.

“In today’s scientific world, it is foolish to consider cow as a Goddess. It is appropriate to provide a financial and scientific basis for cow protection instead of a religious basis. The ‘gau bhaktha’ who portrays that cows and buffalos are Gods should be stopped and tied to a yolk and made to work in the service of the nation.” These were the words of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Sangh Parivar’s father figure. He wrote in ‘Maharashtra Sharadha’ (April 1935), about cows in a way that is a slap in the face of fake cow protectors. In the same article, he has made many more points about cows which are as follows:

“Old roots, new shoots, beautiful tree” – this line composed by a poet is a celebration of the essence of life.  A society that forgets its elders has no future. The elders have a share in everything that we are experiencing today. It is our duty to carry forward to our children the legacy of our elders. A trunk cannot grow by neglecting the roots, and our new generations owe a lot to their elders and have duties and responsibilities towards them.

Worse than the coronavirus, the country is facing a more severe health threat in the form of malnutrition. There is a saying that children are the future of India.