Today’s
articles come from a variety of news sites (“The Independent”, “The Telegraph”,
Reuters and the Foreign Policy website). They discuss the interesting events of
Indian politics from this week including (my favourite), pepper spray being
used in the Indian parliament.
Enjoy:
Delhi's
grass-roots activist chief minister resigns
Delhi's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal waves his
resignation letter as he addresses supporters at Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party
offices
Getty Images
Asia Correspondent
Friday 14 February 2014
Just 49 days after he was elected as the chief minster of
Delhi, an anti-corruption campaigner resigned from the post when his political
opponents blocked a plan to introduce an official ombudsman for India’s
capital.
Arvind
Kejriwal, whose grass-roots Aam Aadmi party, or Common Man party, (AAP) stunned
its rivals by seizing control of the Delhi state government after an election
last November, said other parties were scared their members would be
investigated if the ombudsman’s office was established.
“From here, I
am now directly going to the Lieutenant-Governor’s office to hand over my
resignation,” he told his cheering supporters in the centre of Delhi. “I wish I
get a chance to serve the nation and the state soon.”
Mr Kejriwal’s
resignation came after the Congress party, which backed his minority
government, voted with the opposition to block the bill. He said on Friday he
would recommend that new elections be held in Delhi.
“We might have
done some mistakes. We are also human, but we tried our level best,” he
announced.
Mr Kejriwal has
led protests and hunger strikes against government corruption. They have
included sit-ins demanding public access to government documents, lower
electricity rates and the transfer of control of the local police from the federal
government’s home ministry to his administration.
Supporters of Delhi's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, chief of the Aam
Aadmi (Common Man) Party (AAP), listen to his speech (Reuters)
His campaign
has earned him admiration from working people in the city and elsewhere in
India, along with support from a considerable number of middle-class citizens
who are exhausted with the country’s endemic corruption. Yet his critics have
accused of being unwilling to govern and preferring instead to behave like the
activist he has been for many years.
His party
controls 27 of the 70 seats in the state legislature and the Congress party has
eight. One politician recently quit Mr Kejriwal’s party following differences
over implementation of various policies. The remaining seats are held by the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Socialist Party legislators.
The showdown
between Mr Kejriwal and the Congress party – which run the federal government -
came over a 2002 federal home ministry order which said Delhi state government
could only enact laws with financial implications with its approval. The
Associated Press said Mr Kejriwal defied the order on Friday and sought to
introduce the ombudsman bill in the state legislature, saying the order was
arbitrary.
The evening drama,
played out beneath a rare winter downpour, comes as India prepares for a
general election. The ruling Congress party, led by Sonia Gandhi and her son,
Rahul, is on the back foot and is expected to do very poorly. In turn, the
front-runner is the BJP’s Narendra Modi.
But after its
success in the Delhi state election, the AAP announced it would contest more
than 300 seats in the general election. Some analysts have suggested the AAP
could secure enough seats to blunt Mr Modi’s surge. One senior AAP official
recently told
The Independent the party expected to get at least 40 seats.
“Kejriwal’s
resignation caps a tumultuous 49 day reign as chief minister of Delhi. It was
perhaps the most eventful month and a half of any state government’s tenure in
recent memory,” said Milan Vaishnav of the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace.
“What remains
to be seen is whether the Aam Aadmi Party can leverage this moment to connect
with voters outside of the Delhi region. Polls suggest their reach, while
growing, is still largely limited to the national capital region.”
Ashok Malik, a
journalist and analyst based in Delhi, said that with the parliamentary polls
taking place shortly, it would now depend on whether Mr Kejriwal could use the
incident to his party's advantage.
"In
Kejriwal's perception, he's achieved what he craved - martyrdom," he said.
"He has two months to convince the country."
@independent.co.uk
--------------------------------------------------------
Delhi chief minister quits after corruption bill
blocked
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, whose Aam Aadmi party sent
shockwaves through India's political establishment in local elections last
year, quits to protest blocking of anti-corruption bill after fewer than 50
days in office
Anti-graft activist Arvind
Kejriwal, center, addresses his supporters with his resignation letter in his
hand at the Aam Aadmi Party HQ in New Delhi Photo: AP
4:47PM GMT 14 Feb 2014
Delhi’s firebrand Chief
Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced his resignation today to protest the
blocking of an anti-corruption bill, fewer than 50 days after taking power in
the Indian capital.
The upstart Aam Aadmi party,
formed only a year ago, sent shockwaves through India’s political establishment
late last year when it scored a series of stunning successes during local
elections in Delhi.
But Mr Kejriwal’s decision to
resign little more than seven weeks after taking power throws his party’s
fortunes into uncertainty.
His announcement came shortly
after local legislators effectively shot down his efforts to bring in
anti-corruption legislation – the key plank of his manifesto in December’s
state elections.
Mr Kejriwal blamed the
Congress party for his decision to resign, accusing Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh’s party of reneging on an earlier promise to back the bill.
“Congress had promised us, in writing, that
they would support the bill but when we tried to present it before the assembly
today both they and the BJP came together to block it,” Mr Kejriwal said.
“They have exposed themselves
and shown their true face.”
The Congress party claimed the
measure was unconstitutional.
Fresh elections in the capital
are unlikely, and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could try
and form an alternative administration.
--------------------------------------------------------
Pepper spray, chaos in Lok
Sabha over Telangana
NEW DELHI Thu Feb 13, 2014
5:02pm IST
(Reuters) - The Lok Sabha erupted
in mayhem on Thursday when a lawmaker fired pepper spray in parliament in
protest against a bill on a new Telangana state. Television footage showed
pictures of lawmakers coughing, sneezing and holding scarves to their faces.
Shouting protesters also broke a glass table and snapped the wire of an
official's microphone.
A few lawmakers were rushed away
in an ambulance while others were given first aid treatment in parliament.
"The incidents which took
place in the house are a big blot on our democracy," Parliamentary Affairs
Minister Kamal Nath told reporters.
"Parliamentary democracy
provides for dissent but does not provide for the kind of disruption and
attempted violence which we saw today. I feel ashamed that such an incident has
taken place."
The furor erupted after Home
Minister Sushilkumar Shinde rose to table a bill for the creation of Telangana
to be carved out of Andhra Pradesh.
Lagadapati Rajagopal, a member of
parliament from Andhra Pradesh who was recently suspended by the ruling
Congress party and who opposes creation of the new state, then unleashed the
pepper spray.
Congress has tried to pass laws in
the parliament's last session before a general election due by May, but the
house has frequently been adjourned amid rowdy scenes over the creation of
Telangana state.
Thursday's antics were the worst
and drew criticism from parliamentarians from various parties.
"It is an unprecedented and a
disgraceful situation," said Jaswant Singh of the main opposition
Bharatiya Janata Party.
The bill was tabled but the
session broke up soon after. The speaker suspended 17 members of parliament.
(Reporting By Sruthi Gottipati and
Nigam Prusty; Editng by Angus MacSwan and Robert Birsel)
--------------------------------------------------------
·
BY JOHN HUDSON
FEBRUARY
13, 2014 - 06:00 PM
A decision by the U.S.
ambassador to India to meet with a popular but controversial Hindu nationalist
politician in Gandhinagar is fueling a war of words here at home between Muslim
and anti-genocide groups on one side and an array of pro-Hindu groups on the
other.
On Thursday, Ambassador
Nancy Powell met with the chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, in the most
high-profile encounter between Modi, a Hindu nationalist leader, and a U.S.
official since he was barred from traveling in the U.S. in 2005. The State
Department revoked Modi's visa nine years ago because of accusations that he
had done little to stop a spate of anti-Muslim violence in his region that
killed some 1,500 people.
But in recent months,
blackballing Modi became untenable given his status as the front-runner to
become India's next prime minister. That created a dilemma for the Obama
administration and served as a vivid reminder of how events from more than a
decade ago can still have repercussions years later.
"They should not
have met at all," said Shaik Ubaid, a founder of the Coalition Against
Genocide, a group that spreads awareness about the 2002 killings in Gujarat.
"But I hope they at least talked about pogroms and concerns about
religious freedom."
The rub on Modi is that
many believe he approved or actively encouraged violence against Muslims in the
2002 riots. In 2012, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an
advisory body,insisted that
he not be issued another visa because of his role in the bloodshed. Modi and
his supporters vehemently deny the allegations and point to an Indian Supreme
Court inquiry that found no evidence to prosecute him.
As the prime
ministerial candidate for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),
which is ahead in most
polls, he is favored to win enough seats to form a government after
India's general elections in May. For groups in the U.S. dedicated to
strengthening ties between the two countries, the meeting was long overdue.
"This move is only
positive," Suhag Shukla, executive director of the Hindu America
Foundation, told The Cable. "U.S. policy should
be one of meeting all parties who could potentially lead the country. The
largest and oldest democracies need to have a strong relationship."
Shukla said it was
hypocritical of the U.S. to single out Modi for religious intolerance under the
Immigration and Nationality Act while other more malevolent foreigners went
unpunished. "Our stand is about parity in U.S. law," she said,
pointing to examples of U.S. engagement with Pakistani, Sri Lankan and Bengali
leaders accused of religious violence.
Sanjay Puri, the
chairman of the U.S. India Political Action Committee, agreed. He warned that
the U.S. risked being seen as meddling in India's internal affairs. "He's
the duly-elected leader of a state of 60 million people," he said.
"It is not our calling in the U.S. to interfere with India's electoral
process. When we take a position on someone, it gets amplified and used by
Modi's opponents."
That's exactly what the
State Department wants to avoid as it navigates the sensitive terrain between
Modi-watchers in the U.S.. "This is simply a meeting happening on the
ground in India," said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki during a
press briefing.
"It's not a
reflection of anything else than outreach to a broad range of officials."
In a short readout of
the meeting, the U.S. Embassy in Delhi said that Powell and Modi discussed the
importance of the "U.S.-India relationship, regional security issues,
human rights, and American trade and investment in India."
For Modi critics, the
statement was wholly unsatisfying. "I'm disappointed," said Biju
Mathew, co-founder of the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate. As one of the original
activists that successfully lobbied the State Department to revoke Modi's visa
in 2005, Mathew said Washington owes the victims of the Gujarat riots an
explanation for the meeting.
"It's quite common
practice for officials to meet with politicians of prominent political parties
in any country, but that is not the issue," said Mathew. "It's
disappointing that there was no warning of the meeting and no explanation as to
what transpired during the gathering. For instance: Which human rights issues
were brought up?"
For the State
Department, a number of thorny issues remain. Technically, it would not be
difficult for Foggy Bottom to resolve Modi's travel status. Although the
department originally determined that Modi was ineligible for travel under the
Immigration and Nationality Act, it's not bound by that earlier decision.
"Our long-standing policy with regard to the chief minister is that he is
welcome to apply for a visa and await a review like any other applicant,"
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told The Cable in
December. "That review will be grounded in U.S. law." However, a
Congressional aide familiar with the matter says Modi is demanding assurances
from the State Department that if he re-applies, his application won't be
rejected.
"At some point,
the State Department has to acknowledge that Modi has never been convicted by
any Indian court of wrongdoing," said the aide. "That's what Modi
wants to hear."
Doing so risks
inflaming the leader's vocal opponents in the U.S. But given the importance of
the economic ties between the two countries -- $100 billion worth of trade each
year -- it's unlikely that the State Department will let a decade-old dispute
disrupt relations should Modi become the next prime minister. "The United
States and India are moving forward with a strategic partnership that is broad
and deep," the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.
Getty Images
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