Land'ing an untenable argument: Priyanka's crash landing

What a pity! And what a comparison Priyanka is making between the land grabbing of her husband with the land development by Adanis in Gujarat.  What Robert Vadra did was something that the Sicilian Mafiosi does in the homeland of his mother- in-law.  He bought the land without making payments and passed on to someone else for a profit, coercing the administration to oil the deal.

 He did not develop the land nor employ people nor show any social orientation, but in turn increased his earning and increased the land cost. And in trying to defend this sleazy deal, Priyanka is comparing it to a case of land allotment, development, employment generation, overall growth and social upliftment.  She has nose dived and crash landed her plane of political argument.

Mr Adani has already clarified that most of the land to his company was allotted by the Congress Govt in 1993.  Modi Govt has allotted only 5000 acres of land in 2006 for SEZ project, which was sanctioned by the current UPA Government after due diligence and observance of necessary procedures.

What Priyanka and Congress should note is that more than Rs 40,000 corers of investment came to Mundra during the last 10 yeas.  The project has generated more than15000 direct and indirect employment , over Rs 5000 to Rs 6000 corers of annual revenue generation to the Govt of India through excise and custom duties and above all, with  the development of a barren and marshy area,  the land cost benefit has directly accrued to local villagers. 

 Further, as recent as on 24th April 2014, the Gujarat High court refused  to interfere with the industrial policy of the Gujarat Government and rejected a PIL challenging the 'soft loan' and “land  allocation” to Tatas for the Nano plant  project in Sanand near Ahmedabad. The bench of Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya in its order stated that "State's industrial policy has not been found inappropriate in connection with the land allocation for the establishment of Tata's Nano car plant, in which this court shall not intervene,"

Priyanka's love to keep her family peace is understandable. But her comparison of her husband's land deals with a national development plan is deplorable. In fact, she is drawing more attention to her husband's shady deal and is making him further infamous by taking the line of argument that she has.

VK Saxena

NCCL

Ahmedabad

Shameless Mulayam: Rape of civility

When you thought that civility is returning to public space at last after the nationwide protests against the fatal Delhi rape and the brutal Mumbai rape, here comes the most 'Shameless' statement of all.  A visibly senile, politically beguile and intellectually infertile Mulayam Singh Yadav of Samajvadi Party, now says - boys can make mistakes, suggesting that bestial rapists are just boys and the destruction of women's honour can easily be understated as mistake.  So, he nursed this obnoxious judgment all along in his mind and came out with it at a time when India is looking for change, a higher order of livelihood and an ascent on the ladder of civilization.  How could he say that?  And how could he nurse such thoughts?  And how could he be still a leader in our public lives?  Is this the so called 'Samajvad' that he professes?  

My mind goes back to 'Ramnagar Tiraha' incident of 1994 in Muzaffarnagar district, when Uttrakhand movement was at its zenith and the same Mulayam Singh was UP's Chief Minister.  The Uttrakhand activists were going to Delhi peacefully and in the middle of the night, Mulayam ordered the police to beat up young men, fire and kill the activists and rape women that were young or old.  From what he is saying today, all that happened in 1994 was just a small mistake.

In October 2013, Mulayam's boy Azam Khan unleashed his wrath in Muaffarnagar that resulted in a spate of mindless killing and rape.  Mulayam Singh did not even go the place till day before yesterday as he found it all just a mistake by his boys.  And at the help of affairs in UP is his own little boy, and some small mistakes of taking a few lives or raping a few women are not even noticeable by Mulayam.

Mulayam has exposed his grossly misogynistic male chauvinist mentality.  All those Heads of Khap Panchayats in Western UP and Haryana will now yell, 'didn't we always tell you that rape is just a mischief?  Didn't we tell you that it is always a woman's fault that she provokes men?  Didn't we also tell you that all women are liers and complain of rape just to teach men a lesson?'.  In one shot, Mulayam has brought back to life an era of jungle justice, turning all those beasts of men against women, with the large canopy of shameful protection he has given to the 'boys' of the world.

This speech is provocative, racist, sexist and a potential disruptor of public peace and social justice.  However high he stands on the political pyramid, Mulayam must be made to pay for this.  

This is a test of strength of Indian society.  Voting him out into an obscure political corner is the need in this election.

V K SAXENA
PRESIDENT
National Council for Civil Liberties

Ahmedabad

Rahul Gandhi's frustration eczema

Prince  Rahul  has an eczema of frustration that is making him scratch his skin and tear his hair.  His Lieutenants in South Block compromised national economy, national security and national civility, raking up billions for themselves and soaking up the nation in distress.  When the election time came, many of his lieutenants went on 'sick leave' and excused themselves from contesting.  His manifesto makers found no basis on which the future promises could stand.  His campaign managers and speech writers lost all imagination and lacked any talent to give the Prince some worthy ideas to speak on.  At a time like this, he bumped on a very personal but insignificant truth of Mr Modi's marital status and has jumped to the roof with excitement.

Who had ever denied that Mr Modi was married?  His marriage as a teenager forced a togetherness only for a week or more and was never consummated.  It was an arrangement his parents made and he left it in pursuit of his mind's call, never to return to its fold.  He neither lied to anyone nor did he betray anyone.  He just pursued a larger social purpose, unlike hopping into boats of opportunity like the Prince.  Whereas the Prince lived a lurid life of Italian innamorato, hopping from girlfriend to girlfriend, hidden from the public eye.

But is this an election issue of larger national interest that he should latch on to?  What does the Prince promise the people of India with his newfound excitement?  By his pervert argument that his opponent is married, is he addressing the problems facing the nation and its people?  Along with corruption, has he now also adopted perversion? 

Well, the Prince is covered in frustration eczema and is scratching all his political rashes.

VK Saxena

NCCL

Ahmedabad