Today’s special focus,in NTV,9/30pm was very interesting.While discussing about drastic fall in rupee ,a doubt was expressed that Petrol price,touching Rs100/per litre, is not far away.A spike in oil prices is leaving the people ,particularly middle class,and the poor harried.Iam sure it will definitely show negative impact,on the economy, as inflation will flareup, and the RBI will again be forced to hike the lending rates.The result will be industrial recession,compounded or multiplied by deceleration of rupee value further, against the dollar, the reports say.India needs to take up with Saudi Arabia to secure adequate supplies.It should also demand waiver of sanctions,from Trump Admn,(US) , on oil trade with Iran,The zUS calls India its strategic partner, ,but we should know whether it is a rhetoric.It is said that taxes by centre and states account for over 50% of the sales price of oil.They need to find other resources to raise the funds,as letting oil prices, scale up any further will create incendiary situation in India,which may singe the central government, in particular.

It is an everyday phenomenon to see political opponents outwit each other all the time through their daily quotes, speeches and bites to media. But in that process of outsmarting each other they quite often they get their facts incorrect. Recent statement of BJP chief, during his  West Bengal tour, who said that his party can never be dubbed as anti-Bengali, as alleged by Mamta, because the party’s founder itself was a Bengali, Shyamaprasad Mukherjee. But many pointed out that Mukherjee founded Bhartiya Jansangh, in 1951, not BJP, as the BJP came into existence in 1980. 

Another instance also like this Mr Sha, while expressing his solid support for “one nation, one election,” he had stated that there were instances when people in a state, had voted for one party at the centre, and another in the state, when both Assembly,and Parliament elections held together and also it was stated by him that in Karnataka in 1980 the voters chose Congress for Parliament and for the state, Janatadal secular. But the statement was incorrect on two counts (I stand for correction if Iam wrong) one, in 1980 the elections were not Simultaneous held and secondly, Janata party’s win was in the year 1983.

Again if one just goes back to period of recent Karnataka elections, where our PM and the Congress, both national parties gave totally incorrect information to the public, just to garner the sentiment and votes. Most of the mistakes were from our PM, but here again I don’t like to blame him totally, (as it must be his speech writer

who fed the information) , but whatever it was, PM  who said during elections rallies, that , it was in the year 1948, it was under General Thimmayya’s leadership the war against Pakistan was won and after that victory the saviour of Kashmir, Gen Thimmayya  was repeatedly insulted by the then PM Nehru and then Defence Minister VK Krishna Menon and it was for this reason Gen Thimmayya had resigned for his post.

But there was no element of truth in it. In the first instance Gen Thimmayya was not the Chief of Army, at that time, it was Mr Roy Bucher. It is authoritatively learnt that Gen Thimmayya was divisional Commander with the rank of Major General. While it was correct to say that Gen. Thimmayya  played critical role in the Kashmir war, he was never humiliated either by PM or Defence Minister at that point of time. Thirdly it is incorrect to say that Krishna Menon was the Minister of Defence, it was Sardar Baldevsingh. 

  The cursory look at the carrier of Thimmayya,shows how Nehru rewarded him,for the good work.In1953 Nehru appointed him to head the UN Neutral Nation’s Repatriation Commission I. A very prestigious appointment, and subsequently awarded Padmabhushan, in 1954, by Nehru Govt, later he became Army Chief, superseding two officials. Unfortunately,the Congress spokes man, who was to correct the record straight, also did the mistake by clarifying that Gen Thimmayya was Indian High commissioner in UK during 1957-62. The fact of the matter is Gen Thimmayya was Army Chief in Delhi, Ofcourse the high commissioner was V K Krishna Menon .

Coming to Gen Cariappa, he was not Army Chief during 1962 Indo-China war. He had retired 9 years before., and the fact is his 4th successor was Chief when the war broke out. Further it was stated that Gen Cariappa was also traeated badly, by the Nehru, also, the facts suggest other wise. The fact could be Nehru and Cariappa might have had differences, but the fact was, that after his term, as Chief of Army, he was sent as High Commissioner to Australia, thus starting a tradition that the Sevice chiefs could be sent as Ambassadors, and this trend continued till 1980s.  importantly, after 33 years ,Rajiv made him Field Marshal, which will never have any retirement,if Iam correct.

If you ponder over all these facts, Congress Governments ill treated military heads of Karnataka, is far from truth, as the facts speak the other way. If Mr Surjewala had kept quiet, the mistakes would have been one sided.

'Arvind Subramanian, the Chief Economic Adviser steps down before term'
screamed front page headlines a few days ago.  It is interesting to recall that though he was initially appointed as CEA in Oct 2014 for a period of3 years, his term was extended till  May 2019. It would be highly imprudent to either question or comment on his decision to quit.
In a period of 3 years, three excellent economists have left the country after serving in top positions. And all these resignations or exits do raise a question on the government even though they cited personal reasons for the departure publicly. Raghuramrajan , didn’t seek an extension, while Aravind Panagaria who was handpicked by PM to run NITIAYOG , sought a premature exit, and now Chief CEA, is cutting short the extension, resigned quoting some personal reasons. On the assumption of office, though the present government was able to attract the best of the available talent among the economists, mostly IMF variety,  it has not been able to retain them.
However one fails to see any rationale behind Arun Jaitley himself announcing the CEA’s departure in a blog post. Is it not questionable? Was it appropriate for him to accept the resignation of Subramanian, as he is understood to have acquired the status of a “Minister without portfolio", soon after proceeding on medical leave for kidney ailment? Should CEA not have submitted his papers to Mr. Piyush Goyal, who happens to be nation’s interim Finance Minister?

Just before Karnataka Assembly Elections, there was a major hyperbole about the Electrification of all the villages in India.  It was a carefully timed political gimmick. In our system, the masters are clearly politicians. One  state power Minister tweeted “we have electrified all the villages.” But  PM was more precise and careful and claimed: “ every single village in India now has access to electricity ". When I tried to gather information on this out of my own curiosity, I found, neither was correct.

Under the definition in place, since October 1997, if a village has a distribution transformer, and power lines in place, as well as electricity provided, to public places, like schools, panchayat offices, and dispensaries including Just 10% of its households, it is deemed to be electrified. But in states like Jharkhand, UP, and Assam, nearly 50% of the rural households have no power. So to consider such villages "electrified” could be far from the truth.

The fact that all of India’s nearly 600,000 villages are electrified, means, it’s no mean achievement, but celebrating over just a piece of statistics like the last inhabited village of India getting electrified is celebrating a bit too early. Afterall, don’t Indian citizens find it a bit weird that all inhabited villages in the country have been electrified, when a simpler and more basic need of potable drinking water in every village is still a far cry.?

In fact, it is even questionable whether they have “access to electricity, as such.” According to the Oxford dictionary, the appropriate meaning of the word Access is the”right or opportunity to use”. But do households which remain in the dark have either the right or opportunity? Only theoretically because whilst the necessary infrastructure is missing the truthful answer is: definitely not as yet and maybe not for a long time to come.

 TTD's dirty linen is being washed in the public which is covered by various media outlets. The Head priest Ramanna Deekshitulu has been eased out on attaining the age of superannuation (65). In all fairness the retirement is fixed only for regular Govt employees, enjoying the time-scale of pay, having fixed  TA &DA. Having leaves, and holidays of various kinds, with other perks, perquisites while in service, terminal benefits at the time retirement, pension after retirement, till his death, and family pension throughout the lifetime of the spouse, as far as my knowledge goes, as an HR professional. Therefore, TTD priests do not come under such category. But here not a day passes without arms and wings of Govt meddling with Hindu religious institutions. The abode of worships, centers of unity in diversity, are turned into hotbeds of controversies. Of all the places, the most revered one,  TTD, is always in the news, for the bad reasons. TTD board being an autonomous body, it can fix its own rules, but the norms must be applicable to all, including, Board Members and Chairman, alike, but it’s confinement only to selected priests smacks not only of arrogance, ill-motivation, but also it sounds irrational and ill-logical.

Ever since the new board has assumed office, it has been triggering unnecessary controversies, and the present retirement issue is entirely afresh. Any unpleasant decision should always be implemented in a smooth and dignified manner.  But in this case, the decision to ease them out was taken, after the chief priest, revealed, certain lapses in Administration, of the temple, sent the wrong signal, leading people to think that it is purely an act of vengeance. As per the present action, the axe may fall on all Archakas of all temples in AP.

The board is bound to give an explanation to the objections raised by none other than the Head priest. It has to instill the confidence in devotees, by clearing the doubts they have in their minds. The main contentions of Deekshitulu that they are not allowed, to follow AGAMA rules, in worshiping the God, missing many ornaments, presented by kings like Srikrishna Devaraya, and damaging old constructions, etc, should be clarified, with authentication.

A constant lingering question that arises in my mind is, why are Hindu temples involved in so many controversies? Govt even can not dare to think of intervening in the religious affairs of other communities. Questioning irregularities at one of the most sacred pilgrim centers for Hindus, can not invite summary removal from the from service itself, in the name of retirement. By this action, the TTD board raises suspicion that it has something to hide from the public.

It is alarming that WHO has ranked 14 Indian cities to be among the 20 most polluted ones globally. This is a serious issue as it does affect, countless lives, even though it may feel like an invisible phenomenon. I was aghast to note that the levels of Air Pollution in our cities have risen to an extent that breathing normal air is equal to smoking twenty-three cigarettes a day.
The occurrences of the heat wave, dust storms, and flash floods have been on the rise. Past week,  some people lost their lives, because of hail storms and thunderbolts in some places.  The root cause for all these natural calamities is nothing but mindless deforestation. Our cities are only concrete jungles. Deteriorating air quality in Hyderabad city is also alarming. The green cover has been fast receding and I see no proper plan on the part the governments to protect the environment. It’s high time the measures of damage control were put in place. The current practice like “planting one sapling and cutting one hundred trees” has to stop otherwise it will leave us in the lurch.
Now are living a life where we have to buy water and I feel if we continue neglecting our environment very soon we may end up needing to buy fresh air too.
Policies to fast-track the use of electric vehicles should become a priority, which KCR may be doing it if everything goes well, as per yesterday’s news report.
The state of our public transport such as buses is a separate story. The Auto-rickshaws and two-wheelers are equally harmful.
Both central and state governments, need to take concerted efforts, to address the serious problem, instead of concentrating on Bullet trains, this is the need of the hour.

Recently  NTV had a storyboard show on the judiciary, impeachment, and its implications.  What I understood from the program is that the proposal for the impeachment motion was ill-conceived. As far as I know, this is the first time, in the Indian history that there has been a move to impeach the CJI of SC. This impetus move was conceived by Congress, followed up few other parties, including Communists. However, this proposal has been turned down by Vice-President of India, Mr. VenkaiahNaidu with an observation that it lacked substantial merit.
The constitution, it seems, says, that a CJ could be impeached only on the grounds of proved misbehaviour or incapacity. However as the political class attempted to debate on the differences in the top judiciary of the apex court , the top court must itself address the issues being seized by politicians, who insist that the CJ is not assigning sensitive cases to senior judges and allotting them to his hand-picked judges, in his capacity as master of roaster . I don’t know whether this comes under proven misbehaviour? When it contends and cites the public outburst of four senior judges of SC and their allegations of abuse by CJ. The CJ must have addressed these issues by convening a full court. Another issue which was raised and had had some dark ramifications including insinuations about the way he dealt with a petition by a medical college a case of suspected bribery etc.  But are the senior judges who question these acts of CJ entirely wrong? While putting in place the Collegium system for judicial appointments, the SC says “consultations with CJ” meant that the consultation with a plurality of judges.
Mr. Naidu rejecting the motion against the CJI, maybe a big setback to the opposition parties, but the image of the apex court is greatly tarnished in eyes of general public. Judiciary should regain the lost confidence which is the need of the hour. Given the simmering discontent within the judiciary, the issue certainly deserved closer scrutiny as it was also chance for the political class to engage itself in an enlightened debate on the wide range of issues affecting the higher judiciary. An impartial inquiry would have instilled confidence in the common man.
The serious action may be a resultant of  “LOYA’s CASE” Supreme court’s ruling.  This case may be a victory for Amit Shah, but it doesn’t explain why the Judge’s family said that he had been offered Rs100crores, and why there were  unexplained injuries on his body and why the entire data has been erased from his phone when the instrument was returned to his family, three days after his death? All these incidents cast aspersions on the justice delivery system and therefore it would be seen by some as reluctance to bring out the truth.