The ruling Congress recently celebrated the second anniversary of the UPA's second term with a dinner hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It was a low key affair. The major southern ally-the DMK, that is upset with the senior partner because of the arrest and detention in the Tihar jail of Kanimozhi, the daughter of its leader M.Karunanidhi, on the corruption charges registered by the CBI, was represented at the dinner party by a single leader. There was hardly any public participation or enthusiasm on display for the occasion. Thus, the people's mood seemed glum due to excessive rise of prices of essential commodities. The price of petrol with the latest hike of Rs.5, crossed Rs 63/- per litre in Delhi and was close to Rs.70/- in other metros. The excuse advanced by the ruling party spokesmen was that they could do nothing to intervene as market forces determined the price. When critics and opponents of the petrol hike reminded Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and others that how come the increase talked about much earlier was delayed for several weeks due to State elections to avoid voter backlash, they had no answer.
As if the series of scams, including 2G spectrum allocation and Commonwealth Games, and terrible, uncontrolled inflation, were not enough to distress and disillusion the common people, the ruling party unleashed several legislative proposals in the fields of food security for BPL and "average" families, land acquisition, communal violence, etc. Although these were supposed to deal with serious problems to help common people, they were found to be controversial and counter-productive, with potential for more harm than good. All of these proposals were drafted by Mrs Sonia Gandhi's favourite National Advisory Council(NAC), a virtual parallel centre of decision-making headed by Mrs Gandhi herself which is not accountable to the Parliament or any other official agency.
On the top of that irresponsibility and insensitivity is the loose cannon and foot-in-the mouth tendency of some Cabinet Ministers and senior general secretaries of the party. We recently witnessed Rahul Gandhi and Digvijay Singh's verbal excesses relating to alleged massacre of farmers of the Greater NOIDA villages of Bhatta-Parsaul and the alleged rape of women without any reliable evidence. Singh was earlier guilty of anti-national comments in support of Batla House terrorists. And the latest case of utter impropriety and stupidity is the fulmination of Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh against the IIT/IIM faculties, calling them almost sub-standard, totally ignoring the fact that these national institutes have made a name for themselves and India worldwide due to the high quality of their alumni. How can "world class students" be produced by a less than world class faculty? Does it make sense? With such Ministers in the Indian govt., do we need any external enemies to malign the country?
As if the series of scams, including 2G spectrum allocation and Commonwealth Games, and terrible, uncontrolled inflation, were not enough to distress and disillusion the common people, the ruling party unleashed several legislative proposals in the fields of food security for BPL and "average" families, land acquisition, communal violence, etc. Although these were supposed to deal with serious problems to help common people, they were found to be controversial and counter-productive, with potential for more harm than good. All of these proposals were drafted by Mrs Sonia Gandhi's favourite National Advisory Council(NAC), a virtual parallel centre of decision-making headed by Mrs Gandhi herself which is not accountable to the Parliament or any other official agency.
On the top of that irresponsibility and insensitivity is the loose cannon and foot-in-the mouth tendency of some Cabinet Ministers and senior general secretaries of the party. We recently witnessed Rahul Gandhi and Digvijay Singh's verbal excesses relating to alleged massacre of farmers of the Greater NOIDA villages of Bhatta-Parsaul and the alleged rape of women without any reliable evidence. Singh was earlier guilty of anti-national comments in support of Batla House terrorists. And the latest case of utter impropriety and stupidity is the fulmination of Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh against the IIT/IIM faculties, calling them almost sub-standard, totally ignoring the fact that these national institutes have made a name for themselves and India worldwide due to the high quality of their alumni. How can "world class students" be produced by a less than world class faculty? Does it make sense? With such Ministers in the Indian govt., do we need any external enemies to malign the country?
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