No MSM ever carries such news. If they do, it's on Page -5 bottom left corner with one 4 line paragraph.
OTOH, if a Hindu seer is involved, it'd be page one headline.
Indian Political Discussion
- Thread starter Parul
- Start date
OTOH, if a Hindu seer is involved, it'd be page one headline.
The tragic death of Mohammed Shaikh, the rickshaw puller who shared his life in a poignant video
Apart from a poignant narrative, this article here raises a no of disturbing questions. What exactly is the quantum of our internally displaced people and have we really accounted for them in our census? If so, how? Sometime back, I happened to read that the current tally of Aadhar card members extends to some 93% of the population. I believe the process of allocation of Aadhar cards has ceased some two years ago or at least the various franchises tasked with the process of generation of such cards has ceased around that time. How do we design programs for poverty alleviation if the data collation itself is flawed?
@BlackOpsIndia ; @RATHORE ; @Bali78 ; @Gautam ; @randomradio ; @Milspec ; @Ashwin and everyone else whose interests include the socioeconomic conditions of the bottom most section of our society.
Apart from a poignant narrative, this article here raises a no of disturbing questions. What exactly is the quantum of our internally displaced people and have we really accounted for them in our census? If so, how? Sometime back, I happened to read that the current tally of Aadhar card members extends to some 93% of the population. I believe the process of allocation of Aadhar cards has ceased some two years ago or at least the various franchises tasked with the process of generation of such cards has ceased around that time. How do we design programs for poverty alleviation if the data collation itself is flawed?
@BlackOpsIndia ; @RATHORE ; @Bali78 ; @Gautam ; @randomradio ; @Milspec ; @Ashwin and everyone else whose interests include the socioeconomic conditions of the bottom most section of our society.
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Without Aadhar it is not possible to
Plug the Huge leakages and Corruption
That happened earlier
Come on mate, this is not exactly a new thing. I've always seen poverty alleviation process in our country as a cycle of actions followed by re-adjustments and then more actions. At least that's how I interpreted it in my own mind. Let me explain.
Let us for a moment go back to the era before the Green revolution. Food was scarce, almost everybody was poor, healthcare wasn't available and govt. was doing socialism in full swing. Corruption was rampant, whatever money govt. spent on poverty alleviation most of it would never reach the poor. Since data about rich and poor was neither easily available not very reliable central govt. would rely on state govt. which in turn would rely on bureaucrats(the beginning of babudom).
Then came the Green revolution(1950s-60s). Food production and availability surged, storage facilities could not keep up causing huge wastage of food. But the curious thing noticed from census data was that poverty and malnutrition reduction wasn't as great as was expected. The system was leaky, and to fix it anti-corruption and vigilance bodies were needed. Around that time census projections became more accurate allowing for better planning. This in my view is the first notable re-adjustment, thrust upon by the Green revolution.
The second re-adjustment came after the 1991 economic liberalisation(up to the end of 20th century). Money became more available after this, trade flourished. The govt. moved from the thinking that we can get rid of poverty by just giving people roti,kapra aur makan(food,clothing and shelter). Because poverty reduction by this method will neither be permanent nor be irreversible. We started making investments in long term things like education, polio vaccinations, reducing common preventable diseases etc. Problem of slow inefficient bureaucracy, corruption etc remained.
The third re-adjustment came with the advent of the digital age(early 2000s-today). Aadhar, PAN card, digitisation of records, FASTags, UPI etc. What this did is that it solved the problems of the earlier times, well not completely. But mass introduction of bank accounts, direct transfer of money from state funded benefit schemes etc.is bound to cut the middlemen mostly if not completely. We are still in this phase. We haven't completely benefited from it yet and we don't understand the drawbacks completely yet. As time goes on we will discover the drawbacks and bring about another adjustment.
You've said it yourself, Aadhar extends to 93% of our population. What we need to do now is keep working to ensure all these people out of poverty as we think of ways to somehow connect to the 7% that's left out.
Now to end my rant and answer your question :"How do we design programs for poverty alleviation if the data collation itself is flawed? "
Data collection has always been flawed in this country and yet, data available with the govt. has never been as accurate and vast as it is today. There is no reason for hopelessness. In this specific inquiry you ask of the internally displaced migrant worker population, to the best of my understanding I think the solution to this problem lies in digitising ration cards so that it allows users to access subsidised ration anywhere in the country. This along with a broader formalisation of the economy and steps to reduce corruption at the low levels will go a long way.
Really tragic to read. I unfortunately have no understanding of the challenges that are involved in ensuring there is proper housing for the homeless in Indian metros. One of the key revelations for me to read this article was, mosquitoes being the prime reason people prefer to sleep close to busy roads as the fumes drive away the mosquitoes. Sometimes small tiny initiatives can yield large results, a simple thing like providing insect repellents with subsidized rates or even distributed free, if leads to saving even one life, that itself would be a success.
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This is ugly, why do you create VIP culture at first that it feels like an insult or harassment after it is taken away! In the name of security so much VIP Culture is imposed that it is appalling.
Rahul’s own team fed his PM hopes right up to poll defeat
Pankaj Vohra
Published : June 15, 2019, 7:39 pm | Updated :June 16, 2019, 6:20 AM
The events during the run-up to the counting revealed that either Rahul Gandhi was of an over-trusting nature or was too gullible in perceiving how smooth-talking individuals were leading him up the garden path.
New Delhi: There has been intense speculation regarding the reasons that forced Rahul Gandhi to resign as the Congress president, the foremost being that he was misled by his own team, and made to believe that his party was securing between 164 and 184 seats in the recent Parliamentary elections. Based on this inaccurate information, he is understood to have contacted UPA allies such as M.K. Stalin, Akhilesh Yadav, Omar Abdullah, Sharad Pawar and Tejashwi Yadav amongst others, and offered to accommodate some of them in the next Cabinet.
He is reported to have even obtained two letters from a senior legal eagle to enable him to stake claim to form the next government. A victory procession was also planned to celebrate the exit of the BJP, which of course did not happen, though instructions to a select few Delhi leaders were passed on to mobilise and assemble a crowd of nearly 10,000 people outside the AICC office on 24, Akbar Road. Given that the assessment of the Congress party went completely askew, resulting in a huge loss of face, Rahul had no option but to put in his papers. Currently, he is in England and is expected to be back early next week in time for both the commencement of the Parliament session as also his birthday on 19 June.
To make matters worse, Praveen Chakravarty, who was his most trusted aide, looking after the election office and data-analysis, besides running the Shakti app, is missing from the scene. A day after the election results were announced he has been incommunicado and efforts by senior leaders to contact him have failed miserably. Incidentally, he had not even provided the Congress with the hard disc of the data he had collected, for which he is alleged to have presented a bill of Rs 24 crore. Senior leaders in the party are suspecting that Chakravarty, who played a role similar to the one played by Prashant Kishor for Narendra Modi in the 2014 Parliamentary elections, could have been a BJP mole in the Congress office.
ROFLMAO:
Chakravarty babu toh Sanghi nikle)
In fact, four of the eight persons working in the Congress president’s office have resigned. In addition to Chakravarty, Divya Spandana, who, her detractors claim, charged the party nearly Rs 8 crore, is also untraceable; she has also deleted her Twitter and Instagram accounts. The events during the run-up to the counting have revealed that either Rahul Gandhi was of an over-trusting nature or was too gullible in perceiving how smooth-talking individuals were leading him up the garden path. It is not only he alone, but both Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too appeared convinced that the Congress was returning to power, raising questions whether the family was living in some sort of a la-la land.
Informed sources stated that Chakravarty had met Rahul on 21 May, on the day of Rajiv Gandhi’s death anniversary, and had given him a list of 184 potential winners of the Congress, along with their respective constituencies and projected margins. Rahul was told that 184 was the number, but if things turned out to be slightly inadequate, it, in any case, would not be less than 164. The data was double-checked by the Congress president’s office, and Rahul asked his office to make a list of nearly “100 first-time MPs”, who he was not familiar with, since they had worked at the state level. He further instructed for a separate list of likely losers to be drafted out as well. The second list included prominent leaders such as Mallikarjun Kharge, Pawan Bansal, Harish Rawat, Ajay Maken etc., whom he wanted to be part of the next government.
A day before the counting of votes, and buoyed by the documentation supplied by Chakravarty, Rahul and Priyanka got to work. The two started contacting potential allies and key leaders of their own party. Rahul is reported to have phoned M.K. Stalin and conveyed to him his desire to induct him in the future Cabinet as Home Minister. Sharad Pawar was requested to be a part of the dispensation, since his presence would provide gravitas. Akhilesh Yadav was also offered an important berth, after being asked how many seats the Mahagathbandhan was winning in Uttar Pradesh. Akhilesh Yadav put the figure at 40-plus and asked for Congress numbers in the state, appearing amused when conveyed that the party was winning nine, which included Rae Bareli and Amethi, besides Kanpur, Unnao, Fatehpuri Sikri, etc. Tejashwi Yadav’s assessment was that the Congress could touch the five- to six-mark in Bihar, while his party would be obtaining nearly 20-plus. Omar Abdullah was confident that the National Conference could win three, while Congress may go through in Udhampur, from where Dr Karan Singh’s son, Vikramaditya was contesting.
At the same time, Priyanka, who had an early dinner with Rahul at a South Indian restaurant in Chanakyapuri, was doing her bit. She rang up Congress Chief Ministers and asked them to send the list of potential ministers from their respective states. It could not be ascertained if the CMs actually sent in names or were taken aback by this call.
Two close advisers to Rahul, including a former Union Minister and his personal secretary K. Raju went to the residence of a well-known senior attorney in South Delhi to get two drafts prepared for the President of India. One draft was specific to the Congress staking claim directly and the second one was formulated to support any of the UPA allies. The two letters were delivered at the Congress president’s office.
So certain and assured were the Gandhis of victory that a press conference on the day of counting was also planned, following which a victory march was to take place outside the Congress headquarters. Everything went off-centre when the results started pouring in.
Sources said that the reason for Rahul and Priyanka criticising the Chief Ministers at the Congress Working Committee meeting a couple of weeks ago was because they were misled by some of them. Earlier, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had stated that the Congress could possibly win between 14 and 16 out of 25 from his state, but the winners may not include his son. The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Kamal Nath, presented his figure to around 11 to 15 out of 29. It was only Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, who divulged the ground reality and said that the Congress would win only three or four seats. He was complimented for his modest assessment and told that the figure would be 8. AICC treasurer, Ahmed Patel, was asked for his estimation regarding Gujarat, and is understood to have conveyed to Rahul that the Congress was unlikely to win any seat from there, a matter which displeased the Congress president.
The entire edifice of the proposed government formation was built on inaccurate evaluation, which has been a brutal blow to the Congress president. Rahul was so sure of success in both the constituencies he was contesting from—Amethi and Wayanad—that he asked Priyanka to contest from Amethi, once he vacated the seat. On her part, Priyanka has been admonishing workers, and telling UP leaders that they should “now prepare only for 2029 elections” given that they had let the party grievously down.
According to reliable sources, Priyanka withdrew herself at the eleventh hour from a possible fight from Varanasi, thereby upsetting Rahul’s overall poll plans for UP. She and her husband, Robert Vadra, communicated to Rahul that beginning her political career with a loss in her kitty would not warrant well. When Rahul insisted, she asked him to contest from the seat instead. Earlier, Shatrughna Sinha had offered to contest from Varanasi against the Prime Minister, and had claimed that he had been assured of a Rajya Sabha berth in case he was defeated from the holy city; he was asked to return to Patna Saheb, from where he was reluctant to fight, given that it was a strong traditional BJP seat.
It is perceptible that the Gandhis feel misled and even in some cases betrayed by people whom they banked on. Therefore, it is most unlikely that Rahul will cave in to pressure and withdraw his resignation. Now that his Prime Ministerial hopes have been dashed, Rahul seems to be adamant that he will leave leadership of the battle against Narendra Modi and BJP to someone else.
Rahul’s own team fed his PM hopes right up to poll defeat - The Sunday Guardian Live
Pankaj Vohra
Published : June 15, 2019, 7:39 pm | Updated :June 16, 2019, 6:20 AM
The events during the run-up to the counting revealed that either Rahul Gandhi was of an over-trusting nature or was too gullible in perceiving how smooth-talking individuals were leading him up the garden path.
New Delhi: There has been intense speculation regarding the reasons that forced Rahul Gandhi to resign as the Congress president, the foremost being that he was misled by his own team, and made to believe that his party was securing between 164 and 184 seats in the recent Parliamentary elections. Based on this inaccurate information, he is understood to have contacted UPA allies such as M.K. Stalin, Akhilesh Yadav, Omar Abdullah, Sharad Pawar and Tejashwi Yadav amongst others, and offered to accommodate some of them in the next Cabinet.
He is reported to have even obtained two letters from a senior legal eagle to enable him to stake claim to form the next government. A victory procession was also planned to celebrate the exit of the BJP, which of course did not happen, though instructions to a select few Delhi leaders were passed on to mobilise and assemble a crowd of nearly 10,000 people outside the AICC office on 24, Akbar Road. Given that the assessment of the Congress party went completely askew, resulting in a huge loss of face, Rahul had no option but to put in his papers. Currently, he is in England and is expected to be back early next week in time for both the commencement of the Parliament session as also his birthday on 19 June.
To make matters worse, Praveen Chakravarty, who was his most trusted aide, looking after the election office and data-analysis, besides running the Shakti app, is missing from the scene. A day after the election results were announced he has been incommunicado and efforts by senior leaders to contact him have failed miserably. Incidentally, he had not even provided the Congress with the hard disc of the data he had collected, for which he is alleged to have presented a bill of Rs 24 crore. Senior leaders in the party are suspecting that Chakravarty, who played a role similar to the one played by Prashant Kishor for Narendra Modi in the 2014 Parliamentary elections, could have been a BJP mole in the Congress office.
ROFLMAO: Chakravarty babu toh Sanghi nikle)In fact, four of the eight persons working in the Congress president’s office have resigned. In addition to Chakravarty, Divya Spandana, who, her detractors claim, charged the party nearly Rs 8 crore, is also untraceable; she has also deleted her Twitter and Instagram accounts. The events during the run-up to the counting have revealed that either Rahul Gandhi was of an over-trusting nature or was too gullible in perceiving how smooth-talking individuals were leading him up the garden path. It is not only he alone, but both Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too appeared convinced that the Congress was returning to power, raising questions whether the family was living in some sort of a la-la land.
Informed sources stated that Chakravarty had met Rahul on 21 May, on the day of Rajiv Gandhi’s death anniversary, and had given him a list of 184 potential winners of the Congress, along with their respective constituencies and projected margins. Rahul was told that 184 was the number, but if things turned out to be slightly inadequate, it, in any case, would not be less than 164. The data was double-checked by the Congress president’s office, and Rahul asked his office to make a list of nearly “100 first-time MPs”, who he was not familiar with, since they had worked at the state level. He further instructed for a separate list of likely losers to be drafted out as well. The second list included prominent leaders such as Mallikarjun Kharge, Pawan Bansal, Harish Rawat, Ajay Maken etc., whom he wanted to be part of the next government.
A day before the counting of votes, and buoyed by the documentation supplied by Chakravarty, Rahul and Priyanka got to work. The two started contacting potential allies and key leaders of their own party. Rahul is reported to have phoned M.K. Stalin and conveyed to him his desire to induct him in the future Cabinet as Home Minister. Sharad Pawar was requested to be a part of the dispensation, since his presence would provide gravitas. Akhilesh Yadav was also offered an important berth, after being asked how many seats the Mahagathbandhan was winning in Uttar Pradesh. Akhilesh Yadav put the figure at 40-plus and asked for Congress numbers in the state, appearing amused when conveyed that the party was winning nine, which included Rae Bareli and Amethi, besides Kanpur, Unnao, Fatehpuri Sikri, etc. Tejashwi Yadav’s assessment was that the Congress could touch the five- to six-mark in Bihar, while his party would be obtaining nearly 20-plus. Omar Abdullah was confident that the National Conference could win three, while Congress may go through in Udhampur, from where Dr Karan Singh’s son, Vikramaditya was contesting.
At the same time, Priyanka, who had an early dinner with Rahul at a South Indian restaurant in Chanakyapuri, was doing her bit. She rang up Congress Chief Ministers and asked them to send the list of potential ministers from their respective states. It could not be ascertained if the CMs actually sent in names or were taken aback by this call.
Two close advisers to Rahul, including a former Union Minister and his personal secretary K. Raju went to the residence of a well-known senior attorney in South Delhi to get two drafts prepared for the President of India. One draft was specific to the Congress staking claim directly and the second one was formulated to support any of the UPA allies. The two letters were delivered at the Congress president’s office.
So certain and assured were the Gandhis of victory that a press conference on the day of counting was also planned, following which a victory march was to take place outside the Congress headquarters. Everything went off-centre when the results started pouring in.
Sources said that the reason for Rahul and Priyanka criticising the Chief Ministers at the Congress Working Committee meeting a couple of weeks ago was because they were misled by some of them. Earlier, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had stated that the Congress could possibly win between 14 and 16 out of 25 from his state, but the winners may not include his son. The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Kamal Nath, presented his figure to around 11 to 15 out of 29. It was only Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, who divulged the ground reality and said that the Congress would win only three or four seats. He was complimented for his modest assessment and told that the figure would be 8. AICC treasurer, Ahmed Patel, was asked for his estimation regarding Gujarat, and is understood to have conveyed to Rahul that the Congress was unlikely to win any seat from there, a matter which displeased the Congress president.
The entire edifice of the proposed government formation was built on inaccurate evaluation, which has been a brutal blow to the Congress president. Rahul was so sure of success in both the constituencies he was contesting from—Amethi and Wayanad—that he asked Priyanka to contest from Amethi, once he vacated the seat. On her part, Priyanka has been admonishing workers, and telling UP leaders that they should “now prepare only for 2029 elections” given that they had let the party grievously down.
According to reliable sources, Priyanka withdrew herself at the eleventh hour from a possible fight from Varanasi, thereby upsetting Rahul’s overall poll plans for UP. She and her husband, Robert Vadra, communicated to Rahul that beginning her political career with a loss in her kitty would not warrant well. When Rahul insisted, she asked him to contest from the seat instead. Earlier, Shatrughna Sinha had offered to contest from Varanasi against the Prime Minister, and had claimed that he had been assured of a Rajya Sabha berth in case he was defeated from the holy city; he was asked to return to Patna Saheb, from where he was reluctant to fight, given that it was a strong traditional BJP seat.
It is perceptible that the Gandhis feel misled and even in some cases betrayed by people whom they banked on. Therefore, it is most unlikely that Rahul will cave in to pressure and withdraw his resignation. Now that his Prime Ministerial hopes have been dashed, Rahul seems to be adamant that he will leave leadership of the battle against Narendra Modi and BJP to someone else.
Rahul’s own team fed his PM hopes right up to poll defeat - The Sunday Guardian Live
Rahul’s own team fed his PM hopes right up to poll defeat
Pankaj Vohra
Published : June 15, 2019, 7:39 pm | Updated :June 16, 2019, 6:20 AM
The events during the run-up to the counting revealed that either Rahul Gandhi was of an over-trusting nature or was too gullible in perceiving how smooth-talking individuals were leading him up the garden path.
New Delhi: There has been intense speculation regarding the reasons that forced Rahul Gandhi to resign as the Congress president, the foremost being that he was misled by his own team, and made to believe that his party was securing between 164 and 184 seats in the recent Parliamentary elections. Based on this inaccurate information, he is understood to have contacted UPA allies such as M.K. Stalin, Akhilesh Yadav, Omar Abdullah, Sharad Pawar and Tejashwi Yadav amongst others, and offered to accommodate some of them in the next Cabinet.
He is reported to have even obtained two letters from a senior legal eagle to enable him to stake claim to form the next government. A victory procession was also planned to celebrate the exit of the BJP, which of course did not happen, though instructions to a select few Delhi leaders were passed on to mobilise and assemble a crowd of nearly 10,000 people outside the AICC office on 24, Akbar Road. Given that the assessment of the Congress party went completely askew, resulting in a huge loss of face, Rahul had no option but to put in his papers. Currently, he is in England and is expected to be back early next week in time for both the commencement of the Parliament session as also his birthday on 19 June.
To make matters worse, Praveen Chakravarty, who was his most trusted aide, looking after the election office and data-analysis, besides running the Shakti app, is missing from the scene. A day after the election results were announced he has been incommunicado and efforts by senior leaders to contact him have failed miserably. Incidentally, he had not even provided the Congress with the hard disc of the data he had collected, for which he is alleged to have presented a bill of Rs 24 crore. Senior leaders in the party are suspecting that Chakravarty, who played a role similar to the one played by Prashant Kishor for Narendra Modi in the 2014 Parliamentary elections, could have been a BJP mole in the Congress office.
In fact, four of the eight persons working in the Congress president’s office have resigned. In addition to Chakravarty, Divya Spandana, who, her detractors claim, charged the party nearly Rs 8 crore, is also untraceable; she has also deleted her Twitter and Instagram accounts. The events during the run-up to the counting have revealed that either Rahul Gandhi was of an over-trusting nature or was too gullible in perceiving how smooth-talking individuals were leading him up the garden path. It is not only he alone, but both Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too appeared convinced that the Congress was returning to power, raising questions whether the family was living in some sort of a la-la land.
Informed sources stated that Chakravarty had met Rahul on 21 May, on the day of Rajiv Gandhi’s death anniversary, and had given him a list of 184 potential winners of the Congress, along with their respective constituencies and projected margins. Rahul was told that 184 was the number, but if things turned out to be slightly inadequate, it, in any case, would not be less than 164. The data was double-checked by the Congress president’s office, and Rahul asked his office to make a list of nearly “100 first-time MPs”, who he was not familiar with, since they had worked at the state level. He further instructed for a separate list of likely losers to be drafted out as well. The second list included prominent leaders such as Mallikarjun Kharge, Pawan Bansal, Harish Rawat, Ajay Maken etc., whom he wanted to be part of the next government.
A day before the counting of votes, and buoyed by the documentation supplied by Chakravarty, Rahul and Priyanka got to work. The two started contacting potential allies and key leaders of their own party. Rahul is reported to have phoned M.K. Stalin and conveyed to him his desire to induct him in the future Cabinet as Home Minister. Sharad Pawar was requested to be a part of the dispensation, since his presence would provide gravitas. Akhilesh Yadav was also offered an important berth, after being asked how many seats the Mahagathbandhan was winning in Uttar Pradesh. Akhilesh Yadav put the figure at 40-plus and asked for Congress numbers in the state, appearing amused when conveyed that the party was winning nine, which included Rae Bareli and Amethi, besides Kanpur, Unnao, Fatehpuri Sikri, etc. Tejashwi Yadav’s assessment was that the Congress could touch the five- to six-mark in Bihar, while his party would be obtaining nearly 20-plus. Omar Abdullah was confident that the National Conference could win three, while Congress may go through in Udhampur, from where Dr Karan Singh’s son, Vikramaditya was contesting.
At the same time, Priyanka, who had an early dinner with Rahul at a South Indian restaurant in Chanakyapuri, was doing her bit. She rang up Congress Chief Ministers and asked them to send the list of potential ministers from their respective states. It could not be ascertained if the CMs actually sent in names or were taken aback by this call.
Two close advisers to Rahul, including a former Union Minister and his personal secretary K. Raju went to the residence of a well-known senior attorney in South Delhi to get two drafts prepared for the President of India. One draft was specific to the Congress staking claim directly and the second one was formulated to support any of the UPA allies. The two letters were delivered at the Congress president’s office.
So certain and assured were the Gandhis of victory that a press conference on the day of counting was also planned, following which a victory march was to take place outside the Congress headquarters. Everything went off-centre when the results started pouring in.
Sources said that the reason for Rahul and Priyanka criticising the Chief Ministers at the Congress Working Committee meeting a couple of weeks ago was because they were misled by some of them. Earlier, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had stated that the Congress could possibly win between 14 and 16 out of 25 from his state, but the winners may not include his son. The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Kamal Nath, presented his figure to around 11 to 15 out of 29. It was only Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, who divulged the ground reality and said that the Congress would win only three or four seats. He was complimented for his modest assessment and told that the figure would be 8. AICC treasurer, Ahmed Patel, was asked for his estimation regarding Gujarat, and is understood to have conveyed to Rahul that the Congress was unlikely to win any seat from there, a matter which displeased the Congress president.
The entire edifice of the proposed government formation was built on inaccurate evaluation, which has been a brutal blow to the Congress president. Rahul was so sure of success in both the constituencies he was contesting from—Amethi and Wayanad—that he asked Priyanka to contest from Amethi, once he vacated the seat. On her part, Priyanka has been admonishing workers, and telling UP leaders that they should “now prepare only for 2029 elections” given that they had let the party grievously down.
According to reliable sources, Priyanka withdrew herself at the eleventh hour from a possible fight from Varanasi, thereby upsetting Rahul’s overall poll plans for UP. She and her husband, Robert Vadra, communicated to Rahul that beginning her political career with a loss in her kitty would not warrant well. When Rahul insisted, she asked him to contest from the seat instead. Earlier, Shatrughna Sinha had offered to contest from Varanasi against the Prime Minister, and had claimed that he had been assured of a Rajya Sabha berth in case he was defeated from the holy city; he was asked to return to Patna Saheb, from where he was reluctant to fight, given that it was a strong traditional BJP seat.
It is perceptible that the Gandhis feel misled and even in some cases betrayed by people whom they banked on. Therefore, it is most unlikely that Rahul will cave in to pressure and withdraw his resignation. Now that his Prime Ministerial hopes have been dashed, Rahul seems to be adamant that he will leave leadership of the battle against Narendra Modi and BJP to someone else.
Rahul’s own team fed his PM hopes right up to poll defeat - The Sunday Guardian Live
This whole theory of rahul being mislead could be to save him too .
Most probably. He is being painted as the here who was betrayed by his own side, but he put up a valiant fight. In reality we know all to well that the Congress is capable of the same if not more trickery, assuming these allegations are true.
The problem with propping up Rahul here is that his gain will come at the price of his party's loss. Winning state elections are just as important as national elections, I don't see how this is going to work.
More on Praveen Chakravarty-
He took 24 crore, he is a former Cambridge Analytica employee and currently facing charges for data theft in US. He has not yet handed over the hard-disk where he collected all the data. He is from Tamil Nadu and for his exceptional work he was given AICC seat from Tamil Nadu and presently working to make Karti Chidambaram (son of P. Chidambaram) leader of opposition in Lok Sabha for congress. Also the founder of IndiaSpend the fraud often quoted by BBC and lefties to peddle fake news in India.
This gift ( Praveen Chakravarty) was hand delivered by Jai Ram Ramesh to congress. This is the state of main opposition party, you can easily guess what kind of joke they have reduced India to when they were in power for 10 years. Who in right mind will let clowns of JNU and Divya type to even enter their office and these idiots paid 8 crores, 24 crores to them!
I am really scared to see some 52 MP from congress now, these are 52 potential clowns in grooming, may God have mercy on us.
He took 24 crore, he is a former Cambridge Analytica employee and currently facing charges for data theft in US. He has not yet handed over the hard-disk where he collected all the data. He is from Tamil Nadu and for his exceptional work he was given AICC seat from Tamil Nadu and presently working to make Karti Chidambaram (son of P. Chidambaram) leader of opposition in Lok Sabha for congress. Also the founder of IndiaSpend the fraud often quoted by BBC and lefties to peddle fake news in India.
This gift ( Praveen Chakravarty) was hand delivered by Jai Ram Ramesh to congress. This is the state of main opposition party, you can easily guess what kind of joke they have reduced India to when they were in power for 10 years. Who in right mind will let clowns of JNU and Divya type to even enter their office and these idiots paid 8 crores, 24 crores to them!
I am really scared to see some 52 MP from congress now, these are 52 potential clowns in grooming, may God have mercy on us.
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If these guys want us believe that some one did a ponzi scam (where someone takes ur money and cheat you
) on rahul gandhi then that alone should be a reason to not vote them in 2024 .
Om Birla, BJP MP from Rajasthan, to be new Lok Sabha Speaker
10 years ago he was a nice person and very approachable. The time when any chintu pintu neta of my state travel in luxury SUV's with goons entourage and hooters terrorizing public he use to travel via scooter and you can take a ride with him. Don't know how much is changed now but hope for best.
10 years ago he was a nice person and very approachable. The time when any chintu pintu neta of my state travel in luxury SUV's with goons entourage and hooters terrorizing public he use to travel via scooter and you can take a ride with him. Don't know how much is changed now but hope for best.
Subramanian Swamy was right. Modi’s lateral entry plan will make reservations irrelevant
There are three ways Modi government is likely to undermine constitutionally guaranteed reservation policy for SC/STs in his second term.
Dilip Mandal
15 June, 2019 10:35 am
File photo of Subramanian Swamy | Bloomberg
About two years ago, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy had categorically rejected all talks about Narendra Modi government ending caste-based reservation policy. “Lekin hamari sarkaar aarakshan ko us star par pahuncha degi jahaan uska hona ya nahin hona barabar hoga (Our government will make reservation so irrelevant that it wouldn’t matter whether the quota system exists or not),” Swamy had said in his speech at the Jodhpur Literature Festival.
Swamy’s statement comes to mind now, when the Modi government in its second term has embarked on an ambitious plan of bringing experts from outside the Indian civil services into the Indian bureaucracy through a system called ‘lateral entry’. As many as 40 lateral entrants are going to join the IAS-dominated bureaucracy of the government.
What’s behind Modi govt’s design
The stated position of both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is that they will not kill the reservation policy, introduced by Babasaheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar in the Indian Constitution as a guarantee for marginalised groups’ representation. But there are three counts on which the Modi government should be held under scrutiny.
Lateral entry in the bureaucracy: Even though it is the current BJP government under Narendra Modi that has started this practice, it is not the first time that an outsider has been brought into the structure of IAS-dominated bureaucracy. But the Modi government is doing it at a much bigger scale than ever done before and in an institutional manner. Even as the Lok Sabha elections were on, nine professionals were selected as joint secretaries, which was billed as the “biggest lateral induction into government service.”
This system of lateral entry dents the reservation policy. Responding to an RTI query of The Indian Express correspondent Shyam Lal Yadav, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) stated: “In a single cadre post, reservation does not apply. Since each post to be filled under this scheme is a Single Post, reservation is not applicable.” The nine candidates who were selected in April and will likely join the Modi government as joint secretaries soon are: Amber Dubey, Rajeev Saksena, Sujit Kumar Bajpayee, Saurabh Mishra, Dinesh Dayanand Jagdale, Kakoli Ghosh, Bhushan Kumar, Arun Goel, and Suman Prasad Singh.
Also read: Modi govt to recruit 40 more domain experts in second push for lateral entry
In its response to the journalist’s query about the applications received from different social categories before the nine candidates were selected, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) refused to provide the information.
Several dozen are now set to enter. The government’s think tank Niti Aayog has identified 54 of the total 516 positions it told the Modi government can be filled with domain experts through lateral entry. The nine recruitment for joint secretaries in April and the 40 more for deputy secretary and director level positions are part of this grand plan of the Modi government to fill bureaucratic positions with outsiders. If this becomes a norm, and it appears it most likely will, then the reservation policy will be severely undermined without any formal obituary – as Swamy predicted.
Advertisement
Advertisement
UPSC recruitment: The recruitment by the UPSC is anyway decreasing at a fast pace, as reported by Sanya Dhingra of ThePrint. “The number of recruits has fallen from 1,236 in 2014 to 759 in 2018.” This, coupled with the lateral entry initiative, clearly shows where the Modi government is headed as far as the reservation policy is concerned.
Privatisation of public sector undertakings (PSUs): Although there is merit in the argument that PSUs are inefficient and drain the state exchequer, they remain a prominent source of employment as well. PSUs are mandated to follow the reservation rules, which will be scuttled if the PSUs are privatised. Modi government’s Niti Aayog plans to privatise or shut 42 PSUs, its vice chairman Rajiv Kumar had said in an interview last month. As Indian corporates do not follow the kind of affirmative action policies in the US and many other European countries, private sector here severely lack diversity.
Professors Sukhadeo Thorat and Paul Attewell had conducted a study on recruitment biases in the corporate sector in the National Capital Region (NCR). The study is based on a field experiment where both the researchers responded to advertisements in major English newspapers for jobs in private sector. They sent three applications using upper caste Hindu, Dalit and Muslim names for each advertisement – but kept other details in the resumes identical. The result? For every 100 upper caste Hindu names, only 60 Dalits and 30 Muslims received call for an interview. This happens at the first level of elimination process and tells a lot about the invisible but insidious biases at work in the private sector.
Also read: 5 reasons why IAS officers are alarmed by Modi govt’s lateral entry push
Despite such studies, J. J. Irani committee, in its report submitted to then PM Manmohan Singh in 2006, rejected the idea of job quota in private sector, instead suggesting that corporates will participate in skill development and educational programmes meant for the deprived sections of the society. Nothing is known about whether the promises made in that report were kept or not. The Modi government had made its position known during its previous tenure: there is no consensus among the stakeholders on the issue of job quota in private sector.
The constitutional shield
May be the reservation policy will eventually become something that remains on paper as a wall flower in the Constitution. And so it’s important to list the provisions related to the reservation policy.
1. Article 15 (4) – Nothing in this article or in clause (2) of Article 29 shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
2. Article 16 (4) – Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class of citizens which, in the opinion of the State, is not adequately represented in the services under the State.
3. Article 46 – Promotion of educational and economic interests of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other weaker sections. The State shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and, in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation.
4. Article 335 – Claims of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to services and posts The claims of the members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes shall be taken into consideration, consistently with the maintenance of efficiency of administration, in the making of appointments to services and posts in connection with the affairs of the Union or of a State.
Also read: Before UPSC, Modi govt wanted Cabinet Secy to head lateral entry recruitment panel
Articles 15 and 16 have been since amended to make provisions for reservation to Economically Backward Class (EWS) – those sections of the society (the upper castes) who were not covered under any reservation scheme until now. The constitutionality of that amendment is under judicial scrutiny of the Supreme Court and the Union government has argued that it does not violate the basic structure of the Constitution.
Indian Constitution, like many other constitutions of modern democracies, accepted the equality principles, and made special provisions for the deprived sections at the same time. Retired judge of the Supreme Court justice P.B. Sawant explains, “The right to equality without the capacity and the means to avail of the benefits equally is a cruel joke on the deprived sections of the society…The exceptions enable the state to make the deprived capable of availing of the benefits which otherwise they would not be able to.”
The bigger picture
If one puts together the scenario of shrinking government jobs with the present policy of lateral entry of officers without introducing the reservation criteria, one can say that reservations may still remain, but their version will be pale.
The problem is that there is already an under representation of the SC, ST officers at the higher bureaucracy. In 2017, the government had informed that “out of 747 officers in the ranks of Director and above, which include 85 Secretaries, 70 Additional Secretaries, 293 Joint Secretaries and 299 Directors, only 60 officers (about eight per cent) are from the SC and 24 (about three per cent) from the STs.”
Lateral entry will further reduce their number.
The author is a senior journalist. Views are personal.
Subramanian swamy was right. Modi's lateral entry plan will make reservations irrelevant
There are three ways Modi government is likely to undermine constitutionally guaranteed reservation policy for SC/STs in his second term.
Dilip Mandal
15 June, 2019 10:35 am
File photo of Subramanian Swamy | Bloomberg
About two years ago, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy had categorically rejected all talks about Narendra Modi government ending caste-based reservation policy. “Lekin hamari sarkaar aarakshan ko us star par pahuncha degi jahaan uska hona ya nahin hona barabar hoga (Our government will make reservation so irrelevant that it wouldn’t matter whether the quota system exists or not),” Swamy had said in his speech at the Jodhpur Literature Festival.
Swamy’s statement comes to mind now, when the Modi government in its second term has embarked on an ambitious plan of bringing experts from outside the Indian civil services into the Indian bureaucracy through a system called ‘lateral entry’. As many as 40 lateral entrants are going to join the IAS-dominated bureaucracy of the government.
What’s behind Modi govt’s design
The stated position of both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is that they will not kill the reservation policy, introduced by Babasaheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar in the Indian Constitution as a guarantee for marginalised groups’ representation. But there are three counts on which the Modi government should be held under scrutiny.
Lateral entry in the bureaucracy: Even though it is the current BJP government under Narendra Modi that has started this practice, it is not the first time that an outsider has been brought into the structure of IAS-dominated bureaucracy. But the Modi government is doing it at a much bigger scale than ever done before and in an institutional manner. Even as the Lok Sabha elections were on, nine professionals were selected as joint secretaries, which was billed as the “biggest lateral induction into government service.”
This system of lateral entry dents the reservation policy. Responding to an RTI query of The Indian Express correspondent Shyam Lal Yadav, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) stated: “In a single cadre post, reservation does not apply. Since each post to be filled under this scheme is a Single Post, reservation is not applicable.” The nine candidates who were selected in April and will likely join the Modi government as joint secretaries soon are: Amber Dubey, Rajeev Saksena, Sujit Kumar Bajpayee, Saurabh Mishra, Dinesh Dayanand Jagdale, Kakoli Ghosh, Bhushan Kumar, Arun Goel, and Suman Prasad Singh.
Also read: Modi govt to recruit 40 more domain experts in second push for lateral entry
In its response to the journalist’s query about the applications received from different social categories before the nine candidates were selected, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) refused to provide the information.
Several dozen are now set to enter. The government’s think tank Niti Aayog has identified 54 of the total 516 positions it told the Modi government can be filled with domain experts through lateral entry. The nine recruitment for joint secretaries in April and the 40 more for deputy secretary and director level positions are part of this grand plan of the Modi government to fill bureaucratic positions with outsiders. If this becomes a norm, and it appears it most likely will, then the reservation policy will be severely undermined without any formal obituary – as Swamy predicted.
Advertisement
Advertisement
UPSC recruitment: The recruitment by the UPSC is anyway decreasing at a fast pace, as reported by Sanya Dhingra of ThePrint. “The number of recruits has fallen from 1,236 in 2014 to 759 in 2018.” This, coupled with the lateral entry initiative, clearly shows where the Modi government is headed as far as the reservation policy is concerned.
Privatisation of public sector undertakings (PSUs): Although there is merit in the argument that PSUs are inefficient and drain the state exchequer, they remain a prominent source of employment as well. PSUs are mandated to follow the reservation rules, which will be scuttled if the PSUs are privatised. Modi government’s Niti Aayog plans to privatise or shut 42 PSUs, its vice chairman Rajiv Kumar had said in an interview last month. As Indian corporates do not follow the kind of affirmative action policies in the US and many other European countries, private sector here severely lack diversity.
Professors Sukhadeo Thorat and Paul Attewell had conducted a study on recruitment biases in the corporate sector in the National Capital Region (NCR). The study is based on a field experiment where both the researchers responded to advertisements in major English newspapers for jobs in private sector. They sent three applications using upper caste Hindu, Dalit and Muslim names for each advertisement – but kept other details in the resumes identical. The result? For every 100 upper caste Hindu names, only 60 Dalits and 30 Muslims received call for an interview. This happens at the first level of elimination process and tells a lot about the invisible but insidious biases at work in the private sector.
Also read: 5 reasons why IAS officers are alarmed by Modi govt’s lateral entry push
Despite such studies, J. J. Irani committee, in its report submitted to then PM Manmohan Singh in 2006, rejected the idea of job quota in private sector, instead suggesting that corporates will participate in skill development and educational programmes meant for the deprived sections of the society. Nothing is known about whether the promises made in that report were kept or not. The Modi government had made its position known during its previous tenure: there is no consensus among the stakeholders on the issue of job quota in private sector.
The constitutional shield
May be the reservation policy will eventually become something that remains on paper as a wall flower in the Constitution. And so it’s important to list the provisions related to the reservation policy.
1. Article 15 (4) – Nothing in this article or in clause (2) of Article 29 shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
2. Article 16 (4) – Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class of citizens which, in the opinion of the State, is not adequately represented in the services under the State.
3. Article 46 – Promotion of educational and economic interests of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other weaker sections. The State shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and, in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation.
4. Article 335 – Claims of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to services and posts The claims of the members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes shall be taken into consideration, consistently with the maintenance of efficiency of administration, in the making of appointments to services and posts in connection with the affairs of the Union or of a State.
Also read: Before UPSC, Modi govt wanted Cabinet Secy to head lateral entry recruitment panel
Articles 15 and 16 have been since amended to make provisions for reservation to Economically Backward Class (EWS) – those sections of the society (the upper castes) who were not covered under any reservation scheme until now. The constitutionality of that amendment is under judicial scrutiny of the Supreme Court and the Union government has argued that it does not violate the basic structure of the Constitution.
Indian Constitution, like many other constitutions of modern democracies, accepted the equality principles, and made special provisions for the deprived sections at the same time. Retired judge of the Supreme Court justice P.B. Sawant explains, “The right to equality without the capacity and the means to avail of the benefits equally is a cruel joke on the deprived sections of the society…The exceptions enable the state to make the deprived capable of availing of the benefits which otherwise they would not be able to.”
The bigger picture
If one puts together the scenario of shrinking government jobs with the present policy of lateral entry of officers without introducing the reservation criteria, one can say that reservations may still remain, but their version will be pale.
The problem is that there is already an under representation of the SC, ST officers at the higher bureaucracy. In 2017, the government had informed that “out of 747 officers in the ranks of Director and above, which include 85 Secretaries, 70 Additional Secretaries, 293 Joint Secretaries and 299 Directors, only 60 officers (about eight per cent) are from the SC and 24 (about three per cent) from the STs.”
Lateral entry will further reduce their number.
The author is a senior journalist. Views are personal.
Subramanian swamy was right. Modi's lateral entry plan will make reservations irrelevant
More on the Chakravatry story :If these guys want us believe that some one did a ponzi scam (where someone takes ur money and cheat you
Behind the Congress Rout: A Data Debacle - ETtech
Who needs polished, worked, struggled, knowledgeable civil servants when you can import some on recommendations of your industrialist friends.Subramanian Swamy was right. Modi’s lateral entry plan will make reservations irrelevant
There are three ways Modi government is likely to undermine constitutionally guaranteed reservation policy for SC/STs in his second term.
Dilip Mandal
15 June, 2019 10:35 am
File photo of Subramanian Swamy | Bloomberg
About two years ago, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy had categorically rejected all talks about Narendra Modi government ending caste-based reservation policy. “Lekin hamari sarkaar aarakshan ko us star par pahuncha degi jahaan uska hona ya nahin hona barabar hoga (Our government will make reservation so irrelevant that it wouldn’t matter whether the quota system exists or not),” Swamy had said in his speech at the Jodhpur Literature Festival.
Swamy’s statement comes to mind now, when the Modi government in its second term has embarked on an ambitious plan of bringing experts from outside the Indian civil services into the Indian bureaucracy through a system called ‘lateral entry’. As many as 40 lateral entrants are going to join the IAS-dominated bureaucracy of the government.
What’s behind Modi govt’s design
The stated position of both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is that they will not kill the reservation policy, introduced by Babasaheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar in the Indian Constitution as a guarantee for marginalised groups’ representation. But there are three counts on which the Modi government should be held under scrutiny.
Lateral entry in the bureaucracy: Even though it is the current BJP government under Narendra Modi that has started this practice, it is not the first time that an outsider has been brought into the structure of IAS-dominated bureaucracy. But the Modi government is doing it at a much bigger scale than ever done before and in an institutional manner. Even as the Lok Sabha elections were on, nine professionals were selected as joint secretaries, which was billed as the “biggest lateral induction into government service.”
This system of lateral entry dents the reservation policy. Responding to an RTI query of The Indian Express correspondent Shyam Lal Yadav, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) stated: “In a single cadre post, reservation does not apply. Since each post to be filled under this scheme is a Single Post, reservation is not applicable.” The nine candidates who were selected in April and will likely join the Modi government as joint secretaries soon are: Amber Dubey, Rajeev Saksena, Sujit Kumar Bajpayee, Saurabh Mishra, Dinesh Dayanand Jagdale, Kakoli Ghosh, Bhushan Kumar, Arun Goel, and Suman Prasad Singh.
Also read: Modi govt to recruit 40 more domain experts in second push for lateral entry
In its response to the journalist’s query about the applications received from different social categories before the nine candidates were selected, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) refused to provide the information.
Several dozen are now set to enter. The government’s think tank Niti Aayog has identified 54 of the total 516 positions it told the Modi government can be filled with domain experts through lateral entry. The nine recruitment for joint secretaries in April and the 40 more for deputy secretary and director level positions are part of this grand plan of the Modi government to fill bureaucratic positions with outsiders. If this becomes a norm, and it appears it most likely will, then the reservation policy will be severely undermined without any formal obituary – as Swamy predicted.
Advertisement
Advertisement
UPSC recruitment: The recruitment by the UPSC is anyway decreasing at a fast pace, as reported by Sanya Dhingra of ThePrint. “The number of recruits has fallen from 1,236 in 2014 to 759 in 2018.” This, coupled with the lateral entry initiative, clearly shows where the Modi government is headed as far as the reservation policy is concerned.
Privatisation of public sector undertakings (PSUs): Although there is merit in the argument that PSUs are inefficient and drain the state exchequer, they remain a prominent source of employment as well. PSUs are mandated to follow the reservation rules, which will be scuttled if the PSUs are privatised. Modi government’s Niti Aayog plans to privatise or shut 42 PSUs, its vice chairman Rajiv Kumar had said in an interview last month. As Indian corporates do not follow the kind of affirmative action policies in the US and many other European countries, private sector here severely lack diversity.
Professors Sukhadeo Thorat and Paul Attewell had conducted a study on recruitment biases in the corporate sector in the National Capital Region (NCR). The study is based on a field experiment where both the researchers responded to advertisements in major English newspapers for jobs in private sector. They sent three applications using upper caste Hindu, Dalit and Muslim names for each advertisement – but kept other details in the resumes identical. The result? For every 100 upper caste Hindu names, only 60 Dalits and 30 Muslims received call for an interview. This happens at the first level of elimination process and tells a lot about the invisible but insidious biases at work in the private sector.
Also read: 5 reasons why IAS officers are alarmed by Modi govt’s lateral entry push
Despite such studies, J. J. Irani committee, in its report submitted to then PM Manmohan Singh in 2006, rejected the idea of job quota in private sector, instead suggesting that corporates will participate in skill development and educational programmes meant for the deprived sections of the society. Nothing is known about whether the promises made in that report were kept or not. The Modi government had made its position known during its previous tenure: there is no consensus among the stakeholders on the issue of job quota in private sector.
The constitutional shield
May be the reservation policy will eventually become something that remains on paper as a wall flower in the Constitution. And so it’s important to list the provisions related to the reservation policy.
1. Article 15 (4) – Nothing in this article or in clause (2) of Article 29 shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
2. Article 16 (4) – Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class of citizens which, in the opinion of the State, is not adequately represented in the services under the State.
3. Article 46 – Promotion of educational and economic interests of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other weaker sections. The State shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and, in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation.
4. Article 335 – Claims of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to services and posts The claims of the members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes shall be taken into consideration, consistently with the maintenance of efficiency of administration, in the making of appointments to services and posts in connection with the affairs of the Union or of a State.
Also read: Before UPSC, Modi govt wanted Cabinet Secy to head lateral entry recruitment panel
Articles 15 and 16 have been since amended to make provisions for reservation to Economically Backward Class (EWS) – those sections of the society (the upper castes) who were not covered under any reservation scheme until now. The constitutionality of that amendment is under judicial scrutiny of the Supreme Court and the Union government has argued that it does not violate the basic structure of the Constitution.
Indian Constitution, like many other constitutions of modern democracies, accepted the equality principles, and made special provisions for the deprived sections at the same time. Retired judge of the Supreme Court justice P.B. Sawant explains, “The right to equality without the capacity and the means to avail of the benefits equally is a cruel joke on the deprived sections of the society…The exceptions enable the state to make the deprived capable of availing of the benefits which otherwise they would not be able to.”
The bigger picture
If one puts together the scenario of shrinking government jobs with the present policy of lateral entry of officers without introducing the reservation criteria, one can say that reservations may still remain, but their version will be pale.
The problem is that there is already an under representation of the SC, ST officers at the higher bureaucracy. In 2017, the government had informed that “out of 747 officers in the ranks of Director and above, which include 85 Secretaries, 70 Additional Secretaries, 293 Joint Secretaries and 299 Directors, only 60 officers (about eight per cent) are from the SC and 24 (about three per cent) from the STs.”
Lateral entry will further reduce their number.
The author is a senior journalist. Views are personal.
Subramanian swamy was right. Modi's lateral entry plan will make reservations irrelevant