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JanjaWeed
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Isn't that Poonawala guy?
ranjeet
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Echo_419
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I remember the days of hamara congress
ranjeet
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He is planning a Ghulam Ali concert in Pune, hence the cap.
Echo_419
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I agree with you,I respected that man a lot for his skills but he turned out to be just another anti-hindu bigot
ranjeet
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Nehru had his harem, Advani had a keep.
Echo_419
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Woah!! a VERY BRAVE statement to make!! Amit Shah was furious with Giriraj Singh when he said no savarna would be the CM!
Wonder what Shahnawaz was thinking when he said this! Or will this be the official party position?
But we should not forget that Modi wherever the BJP has won has made the CM a person who went against the general stereotype/criteria(Brahmin in Maha., Punjabi in Haryana, OBC in jharkhand) .
I think Bihar could see it's 2nd(I think) EBC CM if the PM goes ahead with such a criteria, this could finish NiKu's EBC votebank forever. But at the same time anger Sushil Modi & Nand Kishore Yadav who feel they have a greater right to the throne!
You are going to have to wait for a long,long time for the capital to come. perhaps 2 decades. The main part/administration+govt. buildings will be done in 10 years, the rest will need lots of funding which AP lacks especially when it plans to build an international city which is to be the envy of the rest of the nation. But we can expect funding/help from Singapore,Japan & even South Korea if things go right
I estimate Amaravati as a whole will be finished/reach it's potential in 20-30 years depending upon the party in power at state+who the CM will be, CBN will not last for more than 15 years if you ask me.
Sushil should be given a chance to the throne that guy has some mad skills
JanjaWeed
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No wonder he has a Jinnah cap on! Sounds like Congressis are quite blatant in their preference off late!
It is perhaps just a coincidence that around the same time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised the permanency of the quota system in India, the Jammu & Kashmir High Court claimed that Article 370 was not a temporary provision in the Constitution, but a permanent one.
Modi, possibly with an eye on the Dalit and OBC vote in the ongoing Bihar elections, said in Mumbai on Sunday, "We believe in the principles of Dr Ambedkar and his teachings of inclusive growth. The reservation policy is something Dr Ambedkar has given to the country, and no power can take it away."
It is worth recalling that BR Ambedkar never intended the Constitution’s provisions to be cast in stone – especially provisions that are not central to basic values and fundamental rights. But even he may not have realised how making things super-flexible could end up subverting the core liberal ideas behind the original Constitution. With 100 amendments in 68 years, what we have today is not Ambedkar's constitution. It is closer to Stalin's ideals than Ambedkar's.
It is one thing to focus on uplifting the poor and backward, quite another to presume that permanent reservations and continued extension of the quota system to more and more communities is the right, or even the only, way to achieve social justice. With every community now demanding quotas, including the Patels of Gujarat and even some Brahmins, in due course the quota system will soon become a monster at odds with the basic principles of social justice. Modi may not be able to tinker with the quota system much, but quotas cannot be the only medicine for social injustice.
The J&K High Court last week pandered to another political constituency – the Kashmir Valley’s fixation on Article 370, which gives the state special powers that other Indian states do not enjoy. "Article 370, though titled 'Temporary provision' and included in Para XXI titled 'Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions', has assumed a place of permanence in the constitution," the high court bench said on Saturday (10 October). The court added for good measure: "It (article 370) is beyond amendment, repeal or abrogation in as much as the constituent assembly of the state, before its dissolution, did not recommend its amendment or repeal.” (Italics mine)
This interpretation is truly a travesty. If the word "temporary" can be equated with “permanent", we might as well burn all dictionaries, as every word can be given the meaning any individual desires to give it. No one can then understand what anyone else is saying.
Just as Modi should not presume that any idea inserted into the original Indian Constitution – beyond fundamental rights – is inviolate, there is absolutely no need to think Article 370 is cast in stone. Of course, it is possible to argue in favour of more powers for all states, but a plain reading of Article 370 leaves us with no alternative but to assert that it was inserted only as a temporary measure.
Unfortunately in India, bad ideas – even when accepted temporarily – tend to become permanent in a constitutional scheme of things as even minuscule minorities have the power to block good legislation, but not the power to act positively in the national interest. The Constitution, as it now stands, thus needs a complete overhaul.
Much as we would like to pretend that whatever Ambedkar did with the Constitution was the last word in law-making, the great man himself had no illusions about what he had created. Speaking in a debate in parliament in 1953, he made it plain that much of what was written into the Constitution was the result of a broader consensus. His precise words were that he did what he was asked to do. This is what he said in reply to a member: “Now sir, we have inherited a tradition. People always keep saying to me 'oh, you are the maker of the Constitution.' My answer is I was a hack. What I was asked to do I did much against my will.”
Later on, he said quite clearly: "My friends tell me that I have made the Constitution. But I am quite prepared to say that I shall be the first person to burn it. I do not want it. It does not suit anybody...".
If Ambedkar could have said this barely three years after the Constitution was ratified, surely he would be the first one to take a matchbox to it. This is not to say he will want the Constitution or quotas to be dumped; just that he believed the Constitution could be changed when needed if it did not serve any purpose.
Ambedkar gave India a flexible Constitution partly because he felt that he should not tie the hands of future generations, when the needs of the country may be different from the one he was preparing the initial Constitution for. His mistake, if any, was possibly to make amendment of the Constitution too easy, and in just over 68 years of independence, we managed 100 amendments, with another couple of scores of them being lined up for the future. The US, after 240 years of freedom, has managed all of 27 amendments.
Any Constitution must be built on two ideas: a bedrock of values (like free speech, free association, freedom to carry on a profession, trade or business, equality before the law, etc) that must remain fairly unalterable over long periods in a country’s life; we can also have other (good to have) constitutional or legislative amendments that can be added or subtracted over time (right to food, education, etc) provided these do not transgress any of first set of basic values and fundamental rights of citizens. The right to quotas and free food belong to the latter category. They are not central to our constitutional scheme of things. The right to dignity and affirmative action to help the historically disadvantaged does not mean a permanent right to quotas.
But what we have seen is a consistent effort to devalue fundamental rights even while we have proliferated laws, including constitutional amendments, to further the cause of non-freedom and politically-induced freebie culture.
The first amendment to the Constitution, which put a limit on free speech, came even before the ink had dried on Ambedkar’s document. Since then, we have whittled down rights (privacy rights, property rights), even religious rights of the majority community, with the state meddling in the same. We are now a free Republic with little chains attached to every limb.
As Shruti Rajagopalan, Assistant Professor of Purchase College, State University of New York, noted, the pursuit of socialism has had the net effect of curtailing the rule of law and fundamental rights. In a paper titled “Incompatible institutions: socialism versus constitutionalism in India,” she says that the “formal institutions of socialist planning were fundamentally incompatible with the constraints imposed by the Indian Constitution. This incompatibility led to frequent amendments to the Constitution, especially in the area of Fundamental Rights. Consequently, pursuit of socialist policies gradually undermined the Constitution. The contradictory mixture of socialism and constitutionalism led to economic and political deprivations.” (You can hear her views on Youtube here.)
By passing 100 constitutional amendments in the name of socialism and the poor, what we essentially have today is not Ambedkar’s original tome, but a mish-mash of illiberal ideas masquerading as pro-poor law. It bears no resemblance to what was originally intended by our founding fathers.
Many of these amendments were carried out when the Congress party ruled both houses of parliament and in most of the states. They thus emasculated states, reduced the citizen’s rights to equality, and ground the rule of law to dust. The judiciary was thwarted with the creation of the Ninth Schedule (laws put into this schedule cannot be constitutionality challenged). During Indira Gandhi’s emergency, parliament even inserted two new ideas in the preamble to the Constitution – the words “Secular” and “Socialist.” Even if one need not quarrel with the word secular, surely socialism cannot be decreed to be an over-arching goal for the Republic? Freedom is incompatible with state direction of economic activities.
So what we essentially need today is a new Constitution that protects basic values strongly, and also realigns it to new realities. For example, it makes no sense to have a concurrent list where both Centre and state can legislate. The grey area of concurrent legislation ensures that only the worst laws will find a consensus between Centre and states – like the UPA’s Food Security Act, and Right to Education Act, the Land Acquisition Act etc – which are politically difficult to repudiate.
Our Constitution needs a complete overhaul from the ground up, with socialists mangling it out of shape. We should honour Ambedkar’s innate wish that new realities call for a new Constitution.
Quotas, Art 370: Why Ambedkar would not recognise our Constitution today - Firstpost
SuMo is an able administrator but no way he's becoming CM if BJP wins.
Modi, possibly with an eye on the Dalit and OBC vote in the ongoing Bihar elections, said in Mumbai on Sunday, "We believe in the principles of Dr Ambedkar and his teachings of inclusive growth. The reservation policy is something Dr Ambedkar has given to the country, and no power can take it away."
It is worth recalling that BR Ambedkar never intended the Constitution’s provisions to be cast in stone – especially provisions that are not central to basic values and fundamental rights. But even he may not have realised how making things super-flexible could end up subverting the core liberal ideas behind the original Constitution. With 100 amendments in 68 years, what we have today is not Ambedkar's constitution. It is closer to Stalin's ideals than Ambedkar's.
It is one thing to focus on uplifting the poor and backward, quite another to presume that permanent reservations and continued extension of the quota system to more and more communities is the right, or even the only, way to achieve social justice. With every community now demanding quotas, including the Patels of Gujarat and even some Brahmins, in due course the quota system will soon become a monster at odds with the basic principles of social justice. Modi may not be able to tinker with the quota system much, but quotas cannot be the only medicine for social injustice.
The J&K High Court last week pandered to another political constituency – the Kashmir Valley’s fixation on Article 370, which gives the state special powers that other Indian states do not enjoy. "Article 370, though titled 'Temporary provision' and included in Para XXI titled 'Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions', has assumed a place of permanence in the constitution," the high court bench said on Saturday (10 October). The court added for good measure: "It (article 370) is beyond amendment, repeal or abrogation in as much as the constituent assembly of the state, before its dissolution, did not recommend its amendment or repeal.” (Italics mine)
This interpretation is truly a travesty. If the word "temporary" can be equated with “permanent", we might as well burn all dictionaries, as every word can be given the meaning any individual desires to give it. No one can then understand what anyone else is saying.
Just as Modi should not presume that any idea inserted into the original Indian Constitution – beyond fundamental rights – is inviolate, there is absolutely no need to think Article 370 is cast in stone. Of course, it is possible to argue in favour of more powers for all states, but a plain reading of Article 370 leaves us with no alternative but to assert that it was inserted only as a temporary measure.
Unfortunately in India, bad ideas – even when accepted temporarily – tend to become permanent in a constitutional scheme of things as even minuscule minorities have the power to block good legislation, but not the power to act positively in the national interest. The Constitution, as it now stands, thus needs a complete overhaul.
Much as we would like to pretend that whatever Ambedkar did with the Constitution was the last word in law-making, the great man himself had no illusions about what he had created. Speaking in a debate in parliament in 1953, he made it plain that much of what was written into the Constitution was the result of a broader consensus. His precise words were that he did what he was asked to do. This is what he said in reply to a member: “Now sir, we have inherited a tradition. People always keep saying to me 'oh, you are the maker of the Constitution.' My answer is I was a hack. What I was asked to do I did much against my will.”
Later on, he said quite clearly: "My friends tell me that I have made the Constitution. But I am quite prepared to say that I shall be the first person to burn it. I do not want it. It does not suit anybody...".
If Ambedkar could have said this barely three years after the Constitution was ratified, surely he would be the first one to take a matchbox to it. This is not to say he will want the Constitution or quotas to be dumped; just that he believed the Constitution could be changed when needed if it did not serve any purpose.
Ambedkar gave India a flexible Constitution partly because he felt that he should not tie the hands of future generations, when the needs of the country may be different from the one he was preparing the initial Constitution for. His mistake, if any, was possibly to make amendment of the Constitution too easy, and in just over 68 years of independence, we managed 100 amendments, with another couple of scores of them being lined up for the future. The US, after 240 years of freedom, has managed all of 27 amendments.
Any Constitution must be built on two ideas: a bedrock of values (like free speech, free association, freedom to carry on a profession, trade or business, equality before the law, etc) that must remain fairly unalterable over long periods in a country’s life; we can also have other (good to have) constitutional or legislative amendments that can be added or subtracted over time (right to food, education, etc) provided these do not transgress any of first set of basic values and fundamental rights of citizens. The right to quotas and free food belong to the latter category. They are not central to our constitutional scheme of things. The right to dignity and affirmative action to help the historically disadvantaged does not mean a permanent right to quotas.
But what we have seen is a consistent effort to devalue fundamental rights even while we have proliferated laws, including constitutional amendments, to further the cause of non-freedom and politically-induced freebie culture.
The first amendment to the Constitution, which put a limit on free speech, came even before the ink had dried on Ambedkar’s document. Since then, we have whittled down rights (privacy rights, property rights), even religious rights of the majority community, with the state meddling in the same. We are now a free Republic with little chains attached to every limb.
As Shruti Rajagopalan, Assistant Professor of Purchase College, State University of New York, noted, the pursuit of socialism has had the net effect of curtailing the rule of law and fundamental rights. In a paper titled “Incompatible institutions: socialism versus constitutionalism in India,” she says that the “formal institutions of socialist planning were fundamentally incompatible with the constraints imposed by the Indian Constitution. This incompatibility led to frequent amendments to the Constitution, especially in the area of Fundamental Rights. Consequently, pursuit of socialist policies gradually undermined the Constitution. The contradictory mixture of socialism and constitutionalism led to economic and political deprivations.” (You can hear her views on Youtube here.)
By passing 100 constitutional amendments in the name of socialism and the poor, what we essentially have today is not Ambedkar’s original tome, but a mish-mash of illiberal ideas masquerading as pro-poor law. It bears no resemblance to what was originally intended by our founding fathers.
Many of these amendments were carried out when the Congress party ruled both houses of parliament and in most of the states. They thus emasculated states, reduced the citizen’s rights to equality, and ground the rule of law to dust. The judiciary was thwarted with the creation of the Ninth Schedule (laws put into this schedule cannot be constitutionality challenged). During Indira Gandhi’s emergency, parliament even inserted two new ideas in the preamble to the Constitution – the words “Secular” and “Socialist.” Even if one need not quarrel with the word secular, surely socialism cannot be decreed to be an over-arching goal for the Republic? Freedom is incompatible with state direction of economic activities.
So what we essentially need today is a new Constitution that protects basic values strongly, and also realigns it to new realities. For example, it makes no sense to have a concurrent list where both Centre and state can legislate. The grey area of concurrent legislation ensures that only the worst laws will find a consensus between Centre and states – like the UPA’s Food Security Act, and Right to Education Act, the Land Acquisition Act etc – which are politically difficult to repudiate.
Our Constitution needs a complete overhaul from the ground up, with socialists mangling it out of shape. We should honour Ambedkar’s innate wish that new realities call for a new Constitution.
Quotas, Art 370: Why Ambedkar would not recognise our Constitution today - Firstpost
SuMo is an able administrator but no way he's becoming CM if BJP wins.
Echo_419
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The strategic importance of Samastipur | 5Forty3
The strategic importance of Samastipur
With 10 assembly segments, Samastipur is one of the biggest districts in Bihar and has gone to polls on the very first day. This is supposed to be an out and out Mahagathbandhan territory with 9 out of 10 MLAs in the outgoing assembly belonging to RJD-JDU. Many political pundits and even BJP strategists believe that if NDA manages to show strength in this district, it would mean that they are headed for a clear victory in Bihar. While on the other hand, JDU strategists know the importance of retaining Samastipur for their own electoral health.
It is in this atmosphere of very high level of competition that Samastipur district started voting today and initial rounds are showing a tight fight here without any edge to Mahagathbandhan. In fact, by noon, it was quite clear that the number 2 in Nitish cabinet and powerful Bhumihar minister of water resources, Vijay Chaudhary, was trailing behind Ranjit Nirguni of BJP.
Across Samastipur district two factors are standing out with amazing clarity. Youth voters are choosing Modi (read as NDA on the whole) in almost 3:1 ratio while there is also massive consolidation of Upper Caste, MBC and Dalit votes in favour of BJP. Another interesting feature (limited to some parts of this district) of polling till now is that Yadav vote does not seem to be fully behind the secular alliance. In fact, this is coming in as a big surprise and we are awaiting further data to confirm this trend. Our veteran poll analyst from Bihar, Abhinanadan Kumar has provided three possible reasons for this Yadav vote twist (must be stressed only in polling and not reflective of full day data);
Beyond Yadavs too, Samastipur seems to be showing some amount of change. The Nishad-Mallah community which had traditionally supported Nitish Kumar is now solidly behind NDA. In fact, LJP is getting almost one-sided votes of Nishads in Kalyanpur mainly owing to Mukesh Saini extending his full support to NDA. This has made the contest in Kalyanpur a tight battle although in overall numbers JDU still maintains a slight upper hand.
- RJD is only contesting 3 seats while JDU is contesting 6 seats and Congress 1 which gives Yadavs that much little incentive to vote for Mahagathbandhan. For instance, Yadavs have never voted for Vijay Chaudhary and are willing to “go even with the devil” against him
- The Beef issue and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s loud mouthed comments on it have created a sort of identity crisis among a large section of Yadavs (especially in Samastipur district) which has possibly triggered a late-swing
- Yadav youth (born after the 1980s) do not really identify much with the original Mandal struggle and have shown willingness to adopt Narendra Modi as their leader in the 2014 LS polls
If, by the end of the day, trends remain similar to what they are till noon and NDA manages to win 3-5 seats in Samastipur district, it could well mean the end of Nitish Kumar’s Chief Ministership. Samastipur is a crucial swing district and the secular alliance will put all out efforts to retain this stronghold in the next 3-4 hours.
Almost everyone in our factory is from this region(samistipur) & trust me these guys are real fans of modi & will vote for him in large numbers
Any idea who will become the CM then? That shanawaz guy is a good choice
Darmashkian
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Migrant voters will vote for Modi! But you forget MGB is very strong in samastipur & all seats in Phase-1!!
1)Final impression: Pappu Yadav's candidates have helped NDA in select seats of Samastipur & Khagaria.
2)Final impression: In a momentum election with no visible wave, Phase-1 seems to have hung the sword on the neck of both the sides!
3)Final impression: The absolute turnout in JDU's incumbent seats is much higher than thos of BJP. This cud show the direction of anti incumbency
4)5% more females have voted than Males! Will be a significant deciding factor. Women have both soft corner for Nitish and immense fear of Lalu.
5)In 2010, most districts of Phase-1 had a turnout much lower than state avg of 52.6%. Nawada Jamui Banka Munger all had 45-47%.Huge jump!
6)Turnout aside, the absolute no. total votes polled is much higher than 2010. No. total voters increased from 5.5 Cr in '10 to 6.7 Cr in '15!
7)Total final turnout in 2010 from the 10 districts was 50.4% (1.2% lower than state average). This time, it has seen an increase of 6.6%
8)So it is safe to assume that the avg state-wide turnout wil be in xcess of 60%; an incr in 6%+, an absolute incr of 1.1 Crore+ votes polled
9)It is these 1 Crore odd new votes which will essentially decide who will win this election, Period!
He further says that there was no BJP wave in phase-1 which was an even contest
I think it could be Sushil Kumar Modi, Nand Kishore Yadav or Prem Kumar(EBC)
Let's check Sachin Reddy's analysis
1)Final impression: Pappu Yadav's candidates have helped NDA in select seats of Samastipur & Khagaria.
2)Final impression: In a momentum election with no visible wave, Phase-1 seems to have hung the sword on the neck of both the sides!
3)Final impression: The absolute turnout in JDU's incumbent seats is much higher than thos of BJP. This cud show the direction of anti incumbency
4)5% more females have voted than Males! Will be a significant deciding factor. Women have both soft corner for Nitish and immense fear of Lalu.
5)In 2010, most districts of Phase-1 had a turnout much lower than state avg of 52.6%. Nawada Jamui Banka Munger all had 45-47%.Huge jump!
6)Turnout aside, the absolute no. total votes polled is much higher than 2010. No. total voters increased from 5.5 Cr in '10 to 6.7 Cr in '15!
7)Total final turnout in 2010 from the 10 districts was 50.4% (1.2% lower than state average). This time, it has seen an increase of 6.6%
8)So it is safe to assume that the avg state-wide turnout wil be in xcess of 60%; an incr in 6%+, an absolute incr of 1.1 Crore+ votes polled
9)It is these 1 Crore odd new votes which will essentially decide who will win this election, Period!
He further says that there was no BJP wave in phase-1 which was an even contest
Shahnawaz is a muslim, he also lost Bhagalpur LS despite there being a BJP wave, no chance for him.
I think it could be Sushil Kumar Modi, Nand Kishore Yadav or Prem Kumar(EBC)
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