Tag: Narendra Modi

PM asks Finance Commission to reward states that worked to control population

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday asked the 15th Finance Commission to incentivise the states that have worked to control population after south Indian states strongly opposed the terms set by the constitutional body to divvy up revenues.

The Union Government has suggested to the Finance Commission to consider incentivizing States who have worked on population control. Thus, a state like Tamil Nadu, which has devoted a lot of effort, energy and resources towards population control would certainly benefit: PM

— PMO India (@PMOIndia) April 12, 2018

The Prime Minister’s statement comes as states such as Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, among others, have accused the central government of being partial towards states from the north. The chief ministers and political parties of these states said the southern states that have diligently followed population control and development policies and are therefore in a better position than the rest of the country receive lower revenue share compared with northern states.

The bone of contention for the southern states is  the terms of reference that the 15th Finance Commission has set. According to these terms, the 2011 Census – and not the 1971 Census as has been the norm – has been set as the base year to determine how revenue is divided.

Southern states fear that the new base year will harm their interests.

The BJP, which leads an alliance to run the central government,  has been elected to power in several north Indian states.

On Thursday, Modi denied that his government was biased against the southern states, and said these were baseless allegations.

Earlier, Karnataka chief minister K Siddaramaiah opposed the terms of reference of the Finance Commission and asked the southern states to oppose it. “This will further affect the interests of the south, we need to resist,” Siddaramaiah tweeted.

He also asked chief ministers of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra and Puducherry to resist the move by the commission.

On Tuesday, finance ministers and officials from Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka and Puducherry met in Thiruvananthapuram to strongly oppose the terms of reference. Andhra Pradesh finance minister Y Ramakrishnudu had said the Centre arbitrarily decided the terms of reference for the new policy, without consulting state governments.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said it’s time states stood together to demand recasting the terms of reference, as it was necessary to save the federal structure of the Indian Union.

On Wednesday, Kerala finance minster Thomas Isaac told NDTV the South will lose Rs 80,000 crore under the new Finance Commission.

Karnataka agriculture minister Krishna Byre Gowda said all states that performed their duty of bringing down the population in their respective jurisdictions were set to lose out because the plan is to shift the base from 1971 to 2011 Census.

With elections in Karnataka fast approaching and a storm of protests raging in other states, only higher revenues to southern states could defuse the tension.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Will establish defence corridors in Tamil Nadu and UP, says Narendra Modi

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the government will establish two defence corridors in the country that will become the engines of economic development and growth of India’s defense industrial base.

While inaugurating the Defence Expo in Thiruvidanthai, the Prime Minister said that these industrial corridors built in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh will utilize and enhance the existing defence manufacturing ecosystem that is existing in the region.

“It is wonderful to see that over 500 Indian companies & over 150 foreign companies are here. More than 40 countries have sent their official delegations as well,” said Modi.

Modi also reaffirmed his government’s commitment towards maintaining peace and protecting the people and territory of the country. He further revealed his willingness to equip the armed forces through various means including setting up of a strategically independent defence industrial complex.

Defence Innovation Hubs

He said that the government has launched ‘Innovation for Defence Excellence’ scheme aimed at establishing ‘Defence Innovation Hubs’ across the country to provide support to start-ups in the defence sector.

Speaking about the roadblocks faced earlier in the sector, Modi said that while the total number of defence export permission granted till May 2014 stood at 118 worth $ 577 million, 794 export permissions worth $ 1.3 billion was issued in the last four years.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Modi to open International Energy Forum ministerial in Delhi

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Signalling India’s growing global importance as an energy consumer, the 16th International Energy Forum (IEF) ministerial will be inaugurated here on Wednesday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to an official announcement.

The meeting of ministers of the 72-member IEF “is the largest gathering of energy ministers from across the globe, industry leaders and heads of key international organizations who will debate the future of global energy”, a Petroleum Ministry release said here.

“Hosted by India and co-hosted by China and Korea, IEF16 aims to focus on how global shifts, transition policies and new technologies influence market stability and future investment in the energy sector,” it said.

Among ministers from overseas attending the meeting this year are those of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran, Qatar, Nigeria, Japan, China, Russia and the US, the ministry said.

“Apart from them, IEF Executive Director Sun Xiansheng, IEA (International Energy Agency) Executive Director Fatih Birol, OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) Secretary General Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo and heads and senior officials from international organizations like CNPC, Total, VOPAK, Exxon Mobil, among others, will also attend the event,” it said.

“The IEF is unique in that it comprises not only consuming and producing countries of the IEA and OPEC, but also transit states and major players outside of their memberships, including Argentina, China, India, Mexico, Russia and South Africa,” it added.

The statement said delegates to the ministerial have been invited “to consider how global market shifts and energy transition will shape the future of energy security”.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

India, Nepal decide to boost cooperation, speed up connectivity projects

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Nepalese counterpart K P Sharma Oli today held extensive deliberations covering entire expanse of bilateral relationship and vowed to boost ties in key areas of defence and security, connectivity and trade.

The Nepalese Prime Minister along with Modi inaugurated the India – Nepal petroleum products pipeline from Delhi today.

“There is a long history of India’s contribution towards Nepal’s development, I have assured PM Oli that this will continue in future,” Modi said in a joint statement with Nepal PM.

Also read: In India ‘with a mission’ to better bilateral ties, says Nepal PM

After the talks, Modi said India will continue to support Nepal as per that country’s priorities, adding both sides have agreed to expedite all connectivity projects.

The prime minister said cooperation between the two countries will enhance Nepal’s democracy.

Modi also said the two countries agreed on laying a new railway line to link Kathmandu with India.

India and Nepal have close ties in defence and security and will work together to stop misuse of their open border, he said.

On his part, Oli said, he has come to India to take the bilateral ties between the two countries to newer heights commensurate with the realities of the 21st century.

“We want to erect a strong edifice of trust-based relationship between the two close neighbours that we are,” he said.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

In India ‘with a mission’ to better bilateral ties, says Nepal PM

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Nepalese Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli on Saturday said he has come to India “with a mission” to take bilateral ties to newer heights “commensurate with the realities of the 21st Century”.

In a joint address with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said his country always accorded “great importance” to its ties with India as the two neighbours have many “things to offer each other”.

“Inter-dependence takes many forms between our countries. Relations between neighbours are different than others. They rest on principles of equality and justice.

“I have come to India with a mission to enhance our relations to newer heights commensurate with the realities of the 21st Century. We want to create a model relationship. A relationship that is cherished forever,” Oli said.

He asserted that the future of the ties between India and Nepal lied “in the expansion of the economic facility and improving investments”.

“Agriculture is one of the areas where India has made significant progress and Nepal could learn from it. The (other) key areas of development are connectivity, railways and agriculture,” he said after delegation-level talks between the two sides.

Also read: India, Nepal decide to boost cooperation, speed up connectivity projects

He said his country had completed “a very crucial transition phase after three tiers of elections (and) during this transitional juncture, we need support and cooperation of our friends”.

Oli renewed his invitation to Modi to pay a visit to Nepal at the earliest.

Oli is on a three-day visit to India — his first foreign trip after taking charge as Nepal Prime Minister for the second time in February. The visit keeps up with the tradition of India-Nepal ties under which the prime minister always makes the first visit to India.

However, the trip comes amid a hitch in bilateral ties after Oli had to step down as Nepal Prime Minister in 2016 following a blockade on the India-Nepal border. Many in the Himalayan nation blame India for the blockade that crippled the economy of the landlocked country.

The ties were further strained after Nepal decided to join China’s One Belt One Road amid India’s concerns that the Chinese initiative would harm its strategic and economic interests. Nepal has also signed a host of trade and transit pacts with China.

Oli is also scheduled to visit the G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology and the Breeder Seed Production Centre and an integrated farming project in Uttarakhand.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Prime Minister to flag off first 12,000 HP electric loco from Madhepura

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off the country’s first 12,000 horsepower (HP) electric locomotive from the Madhepura loco factory in Bihar on April 10.

With the launch, India will join an elite list countries, including Russia, China, Germany and Sewden, that have 12,000 HP and above capacity electric locomotives. Till now, the most powerful electric engine in Indian Railways was of 6,000 HP.

The heavy-haulage locos, with a maximum speed of 110 km per hour, will help decongest saturated routes by improving the speed and carrying capacity of freight trains.

Modi will also dedicate the Madhepura factory — a high-value FDI joint venture with French rolling stock giant Alstom — to the nation.

The Rs 20,000 crore project is expected to roll out a total of 800 high horsepower locos over a period of 11 years.

The total project cost includes Rs 1,300 crore for setting up the factory at Madhepura and two loco maintenance depots at Saharanpur (UTtar Pradesh) and Nagpur (Maharashtra), beside building 800 locos. The average cost of each locomotive is estimated to be Rs 25 crore.

According to the contract agreement, the first five locomotives will be imported while the remaining 795 will be manufactured in the country under the Make in India programme.

The rolling out of the first locomotive on April 10 will be followed by four more locos in the current fiscal.

About 35 locos will be manufactured at the Madhepura facility in the next fiscal (2019-20) and 60 in 2020-21.

After that, the factory will every year produce 100 locos till the target of 800 is reached over 11 years.

These heavy-haulage locos would be pressed into service to transport coal and iron ore, said a senior Railway Ministry official.

Equipped with insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT)-based propulsion technology, the 12,000 HP locomotives will be compliant with Indian standards of freight transport.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

By-election results show that Hindutva has been reinvented

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The recent by-elections in Phulpur and Gorakhpur, which resulted in a decisive loss for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party candidates, continue to be held up as an example of a rising opposition, and a weakening of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

To be blunt, a BJP loss in Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Maurya’s constituencies is quite an embarrassment, particularly for the latter as he, and his predecessors have held onto to Gorakhpur for nearly thirty years. Thus, we cannot unequivocally state that the election results had nothing to do with the BJP’s appeal.  In all likelihood, there may be some aspects of fatigue or unhappiness with the party, and how they operated these two constituencies.

However, if we only listened to Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, we would conclude that the “secular forces” have triumphed over the “communal” BJP, and voters have rejected Modi’s right-wing Hindutva agenda.

Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, the elections tell us that the Hindutva strategy works quite well. After all, Yadav and Mayawati stole a page from the BJP to win these two districts.

Let me explain.

The BJP’s success in 2014, and thereafter, can be largely attributed to the party’s consolidation of all Hindus across all castes. The traditional view that the BJP only appealed to upper caste Hindus was shattered as the party made successful inroads into lower-caste communities. For the BJP, this was the only option to deny regional parties from monopolizing select vote banks, which until then, precluded the BJP from winning national elections on their own.

Grouping of Different Castes

Hindutva, as a campaign strategy, really boils down to unifying all Hindus by promoting a common set of policies and ideas. You can disagree with these policies, beliefs, slogans, and messages, but for the purposes of elections, this is the essence of the strategy. Accordingly, rather than appealing separately (and perhaps exclusively) to upper caste, Other-Backward Castes (OBC), Dalits, and so forth, the BJP leverages Hindutva to turn all Hindus into one giant vote bank.

As a result of this strategy, 2014 broke the previously held view that coalition politics were inevitable in India due to the regional parties, which divided the electorate along demographic lines making it hard for any one party to obtain a majority in parliament. By consolidating all Hindus, the BJP dented the political strategy of regional parties and put Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP), and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in a fix – their business model was questionable.

The Uttar Pradesh (UP) election in 2017 further corroborated the above view as the SP failed massively.

Learning from both instances, Yadav shunned a tie-up with Congress for the Phulpur and Gorakhpur by-elections. As evidenced in 2017, Congress was not, and likely is not able to bring any particularly Hindu demographic to the polls. So what is the value in an alliance with them?

BSP on the other hand can bring out the Dalit vote, which SP lacks. Hence Yadav decided to join Mayawati. Now this may seem obvious and simplistic, but we should look between the lines to see what this alliance really means.

A New Campaign Strategy

As noted, the previous strategy of parties like the SP and BSP to divide demographics and deny any one party from crossing the 50% threshold is no longer tenable when one party, the BJP, is able to appeal to multiple demographics at once. Instead, the SP, BSP, and other regional parties are trying to unite groups across Hindu demographics rather than split them, which is in fact the essence of Hindutva at a campaign level and what made the BJP successful.

Granted, SP and BSP will likely not draw support from upper caste Hindus, but that’s a separate point.  In by-elections it does not matter as much due to low voter turnout.

But the broader point is intact, the SP and BSP are learning from the BJP and using the same strategy – unite Hindus to win. Thus, whether Yadav wants to admit it or not, his so-called secular forces are starting to copy the so-called communal BJP.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

India is still nowhere near securing its citizens’ data

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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It was the perfect photo-op when Prime Minister Narendra Modi hugged Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a town-hall meeting at the social media giant’s sprawling headquarters at Menlo Park, California, in September 2015.

With Facebook now embroiled in a massive data breach controversy, the bonhomie appears to be over, with India warning Zuckerberg of “stringent action”, including summoning him over the “misuse” of data to allegedly influence the country’s electoral process.

Zuckerberg has recently said Facebook will ensure that its platform is not misused to influence elections in India and elsewhere, but after witnessing how social media platforms were infiltrated during the 2016 US presidential election and the Brexit vote in the UK, nothing can be predicted at this point of time.

While governments the world over are fast formulating new laws that deal with users’ data security and privacy, and the spread of false news, India lags far behind on this front.

Is the country prepared in case a huge data security or privacy breach hits its people?

According to top cyber law experts, India as a nation has missed the broader point in the ever-changing tech landscape.

“The moot point here is: How do we regulate mobile app providers, social media players and intermediaries in terms of handling and processing the users’ data? We don’t have a data protection law in place. We neither have a national law on cyber security nor a national law on privacy,” Pavan Duggal, the nation’s leading cyber law expert, told IANS.

The absence of these critical laws has created a very fertile ground for the misuse and unauthorised access of users’ data by the service providers.

“On top of it, India has not revisited its stand on intermediaries’ liabilities since 2008. Also, the service providers have been given a great fillip by a judgement of the Supreme court, where the service providers are directed not to take any action till such time they get a court or a government agency order,” Duggal informed.

In such a scenario, service providers are using the “Indians’ data with impunity”.

“They are transferring them outside the territorial boundaries of the country because we as a nation are sleeping. Once the data goes outside the country, the government loses all control. This has a detrimental impact on the protection and preservation of people’s data privacy and personal privacy,” Duggal stressed.

India has to learn from the European Union (EU) when it comes to formulating a legal framework to secure data.

The EU has asked businesses and service providers globally to comply with its new privacy law — the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — that comes into force from May 25 this year.

The EU GDPR has been designed to harmonise data privacy laws across Europe — to protect and empower all EU citizens’ data privacy and to reshape the way organisations across the region approach data privacy.

After four years of debate, the GDPR was finally approved by the EU Parliament on April 14, 2016. Organisations that fail to comply with the new regulation will face hefty fines.

Although a white paper on data security has been published by the Indian government for all the stakeholders to deliberate upon, the country is still working on drafting a data protection bill.

“India is woefully under-prepared to address issues of data protection and cyber-security. We need a data protection law that protects citizens from misuse of data with strict liability and extremely high statutory damages that must be awarded within a strict period of time,” said Mishi Choudhary, President and Legal Director of New Delhi-based Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC.in), a not-for-profit organisation.

According to Duggal, also a noted Supreme Court lawyer, India should not cut-paste any other country’s law as it has to deal with a different set of problems.

“India’s social realities are entirely different. The country has to deal with the huge issue of Aadhaar which is reeling under variety of cyber attacks because we have failed to apply cyber security as an integral part of the Aadhaar architecture,” Duggal told IANS.

India’s approach has to be based from its soil and the country must strive for data localisation.

“India should not allow its data to be stored outside its boundaries. Service providers must (be made to pay) high penalty if they are found to be misusing the data of Indians irrespective of if they are physically located in the country or not,” Duggal said.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Each input cost to be considered while fixing minimum support price, says PM Modi

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that each and every expense incurred by a farmer will be considered, including his labour, while fixing the minimum support price (MSP) at 1.5 times the input cost.

While addressing his monthly radio programme “Mann Ki Baat”, the Prime Minister said a major decision was taken in this year’s budget to ensure adequate returns to farmers when the government decided to give at least one-and-a-half times the input costs as MSP for the scheduled crops.

Modi said while calculating the MSP, the input cost to be considered will include the labour cost, expenditure on machines and animals-also including machine and animals on hire-cost of seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, land revenue, interest on working capital, rent of leased land and even the labour cost of the farmer and his family.

“Further to ensure adequate income to farmers, agriculture marketing reforms are being initiated in a big way. Efforts are being made to link village markets to wholesale market and global market,” he said.

The Prime Minister added that in order to ensure that farmers do not have to go far to sell their produce, 22,000 village haats are being upgraded to agricultural produce market committees (APMCs) and being integrated with e-NAM (National Agriculture Market) platform.

“Such a system is being evolved that farms can be connected to any market in the country,” Modi added.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow