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India Today
a day ago
- Business
- India Today
Disaster after disaster: Who is accountable?
It was meant to be a week when the Narendra Modi-led NDA government would celebrate its 11th year in power with the signature 'band, baaja, baraat' media hype that has been its forte. And yet, for once, even the astute headline management skills of the government's cheerleaders couldn't detract from the awfulness of the breaking news in the second week of June: at least 270 people died in the worst civil aviation disaster in this country since two planes collided mid-air in 1996. That the Air India flight 171 crashed just outside Ahmedabad in Gujarat, the home state of the government's Big Two, perhaps makes the tragedy even more poignant. Far from celebrating a political party milestone, the nation was united in it is premature to speculate over the causes of the crash – various aviation 'experts' in TV studios have proffered different theories – the crash has triggered a renewed debate over air safety. While official data suggests India's safety track record is at par with global standards, there are enough reasons for concern. A Tata Group-run Air India management still coming to terms with the fact that running a legacy airline is not quite the same as managing a steel or any other consumer business; Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company that finds itself under scrutiny once again; the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) whose supervisory and regulatory powers over a rapidly expanding sector will come under the scanner; the Adani group which manages and operates the Ahmedabad airport will also have to provide to give context. A parliamentary standing committee report on MOCA in March this year pointed out that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) was operating with 53% of its sanctioned posts vacant, while the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security has a vacancy rate of 35%. The government's ambitious UDAN scheme aims to connect 120 new destinations, but its budget has been slashed by 32%. While the number of airports has nearly doubled in the last decade, the amount being spent on maintaining safety standards lags behind. Which raises a big question: will a horrific air crash change anything on the ground? The black box and flight data recorder may provide more clues as to what happened for a Dreamliner plane to explode into a fireball just seconds after take-off but will the inquiry be fair and transparent in revealing the truth given the mighty stakeholders involved? Which brings one to ask a critical question: is there any ACCOUNTABILITY in our system to ensure responsibility is fixed on key figures in a time-bound manner? Just look at the series of events in a disastrous month of June that still has some days to June 4, just a day after the IPL final, a stampede in Bengaluru during the victory celebrations of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru left 11 people dead, many more injured. The rushed event was organised despite the fact that the police had not given the required permission. With back-to-back events being organised at the Vidhan Soudha and Chinnaswamy Stadium, the police was overwhelmed by the surging crowds. A public spectacle for a privately-run franchise's triumph was given priority over the urgent need for public safety. Instead of accepting responsibility, the faction-ridden Congress government in Karnataka has busily disowned its culpability. Bengaluru's top cop has been suspended while no politician who happily posed with the star players has been held to June 9, four people died and nine were injured in a rail accident in Mumbra near Mumbai. The commuters fell onto the tracks while they were standing on the footboards of overcrowded trains. People hanging by the door in peak hour crowding is not new with a sharp curve along the Mumbra track making it even more hazardous. While a Central Railway committee is probing the incident, the underlying causes of a shambolic public transport system in a megapolis like Mumbai remain unaddressed. Is the creaking suburban train system suffering from neglect as alleged by commuter organisations while the private car traffic whizzes by on a shining coastal road?advertisementOn June 16, a bridge collapsed near Pune due to overcrowding amidst heavy rainfall, leaving four people dead and several more injured. The 30-year-old bridge was deemed 'unsafe' but, despite red flags being raised by locals for several years, a work order for the construction of a new bridge was delayed and reportedly issued only five days before the collapse. Approval of Rs 8 crore for a new bridge was given last year, but bureaucratic red-tapism meant that it was all too late to avoid a tragedy. Yet again, Maharashtra's BJP-led ruling alliance politicians have fulminated and promised action, only presumably until the next bridge collapse serves as another wake-up June 15, seven people died when a chopper flying from Kedarnath temple to Guptkashi in Uttarakhand crashed in the forest. Worryingly, this was the fifth such incident in just six weeks in the area, raising questions over the feasibility of helicopter services in inclement weather in the mountains. Chief Minister Pushkar Dhami has promised to put in place a Standard Operating Procedure while the DGCA has assured extra surveillance. Once again, a case of too little, too the chronology of each such tragedy follows a familiar pattern. Little attention is paid to adhering to strict safety norms in a characteristic 'chalta hai' attitude. Rather than focus on the rigors of daily governance, priority is given to the optics of political grandstanding. More fast trains are flagged, more airports are commissioned, more tourist sites are created, more glitzy sports celebrations are a Viksit Bharat by 2047, as envisaged by the Modi government, is a noble aim. Yet, the grim reality on the ground often doesn't match the dreams being spun in the air in a nation of 1.4 billion people. And then, when every now and then, a rickety bridge collapses, a stampede is caused by mass hysteria or there is a rail or air accident, those in positions of power are the first to shrug off their responsibility. After all, in almost all instances, it is the faceless, anonymous Indian who pays with their lives. Unless there is a fundamental change in approach that places a premium on accountability above all else, we will simply lurch from one disaster to the next. Because in India, if there is one sport that we deserve an Olympic medal in, it is 'passing the buck'.advertisementPost-script: Ironically, just a few days ago, a BBC investigative report exposed the truth of the Mahakumbh stampede deaths in January this year. Officially, the UP government claimed 37 people died, but the detailed BBC investigation found the number was at least 82. If we lie about death, what price is there for human lives?(Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior journalist and author. His latest book is 2024: The Election That Surprised India)(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)Tune InMust Watch
India.com
a day ago
- Politics
- India.com
India's water attack on Pakistan, water at 'dead' levels in..., big plans for Indus Waters are....
India's water attack on Pakistan, water at 'dead' levels in…, big plans for Indus Waters are… Islamabad: Farmers in Pakistan are facing difficulties in planting crops in the Kharif season with consistently lower levels of water in dams. This situation is being created there because of India's suspension of the Indus Water Treaty, and it is going to get worse in the coming years as New Delhi is planning several projects on the Indus River system. India is mulling over implementing a plan to optimise the usage of the Indus River system via inter-basin water transfers. The plan is to construct a 113-km canal in order to redirect excess water from Jammu & Kashmir to farming-prone states — Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan. Short-term reservoir maintenance, including flushing and desilting, is underway at the Baglihar and Salal hydroelectric plants on the Chenab River. This work complements other planned initiatives. The focus of these actions is to store and regulate maximum water flow after the suspension of 1960 Indus Waters Treaty by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Central government following the Pahalgam terror attack in April that claimed 26 lives of tourists. Big Plans For Indus Waters India is developing a long-term strategy for maximising the Indus River system's potential. This involves a comprehensive plan for inter-basin water transfers, starting with a feasibility study for a 113-km canal to divert surplus water from Jammu and Kashmir to Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan, as per a report by TOI. The Chenab Link The proposed canal, through Ravi-Beas-Sutlej, will connect to the Chenab. This will optimise the utilisation of eastern rivers such as the Yamuna, Beas and Sutlej. It will also enable India to utilise the allocated share of western rivers like Indus, Jhelum and Chenab under the treaty, preventing excess water flow to Pakistan. Indian Home Minister Amit Shah has pledged to deliver Indus River water to Rajasthan's Sri Ganganagar district via canal systems within three years. This project aims to improve irrigation in large agricultural areas, potentially impacting Pakistan's access to the river's water. The plan involves redirecting surplus water from Jammu and Kashmir to Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan, aiming for a fairer distribution of water resources across the region. Pakistan Faces 'Dead' Water Levels Meanwhile, the water levels in rivers flowing to the neighbouring country reached 'dead' levels. Rivers such Indus, Jhelum and Chenab which flow from India are witnessing a continuous reduction in volume. This has forced Pak to release more easter than it receives to fulfil the requirements. Reduced water flow downstream of Jammu & Kashmir dams is expected to worsen during the pre-monsoon season due to routine dam maintenance activities, including desilting and flushing, aimed at increasing storage capacity. Because of the suspension of the Indus Water Treaty, Pak's Punjab province, where farmers have started the kharif cultivation, is receiving less water compared to the previous year. Pakistan's Mangla and Tarbela dams, vital water sources, are nearing critically low levels, approaching their minimum operational capacity, despite the monsoon season being approximately one month away. This simply means that a further decrease in water flow may leave Islamabad with very few options to cater to its farming operations before the arrival of the monsoon.
India Today
3 days ago
- Politics
- India Today
Language wars: Three-language formula or one-nation agenda?
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated June 23, 2025)Late in May, the Tamil Nadu government took the unprecedented step of moving the Supreme Court, seeking the disbursal of over Rs 2,000 crore in funds under the Samagra Shiksha Scheme (SSS), claiming the Union government had withheld it in a bid to coerce the state into implementing the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020. Tamil Nadu has been vociferously opposing the NEP's three-language formula and the tacit pro-Hindi tilt ascribed to is the latest flashpoint in the battle between non-Hindi-speaking states and the Centre over the NEP. On May 9, the apex court had dismissed a plea filed by advocate G.S. Mani seeking directions to the governments of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal to implement the NEP. The court stated that its powers under Article 32 of the Constitution were limited to ensuring the protection of citizens' fundamental rights and not mandating policy decisions on state governments. The aggrieved states allege that attempts to 'impose Hindi' are part of a grand design of the Sangh parivar and, by extension, the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre, to undermine local cultures and languages and imperil India's cultural Tamil Nadu's impassioned protests, it was Maharashtra's turn to reach boiling point. A rising chorus of protests has forced the Devendra Fadnavis regime to backpedal on making Hindi the compulsory third language after Marathi and English in Classes I to V. The objecters, not counting activists, ranged across the ideological spectrum, from the Congress, Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray to CPI(M) and Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). Together, this seemingly unlikely coalition railed against the 'imposition of Hindi at the cost of Marathi'.advertisement This has been the crux of the battle in non-Hindi speaking states, and Maharashtra's case typified it. After a government resolution (GR) in mid-April made Hindi mandatory for the primary classes in the state, stakeholders immediately cried foul, saying this would involve additional challenges for their young wards. Mahendra Ganpule, a former head of the Maharashtra School Principals Association, feels forcing 6-10-year-olds to learn a third language, would reduce the mind space available for crucial subjects like maths. Ganpule also pointed out that, unlike the decision on English, there had been no consultations with experts on the Hindi ANTIPATHYOn April 22, school education minister Dadaji Bhuse said they were staying the order on Hindi. Although Fadnavis denied it, it is evident the impending local body polls led to the rethink. BJP sources say they did not want to be stuck with the 'anti-Marathi' tag, especially considering the belligerent support of non-Marathi groups for the party in Maharashtra. The Hindi issue also formed a conducive backdrop for politically estranged cousins Uddhav and Raj Thackeray to extend overtures for a possible rapprochement. Pratap Sarnaik, transport minister from the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shine faction), has stoked the fires further by publicly claiming Hindi has become Mumbai's 'bolibhasha (lingua franca)'.advertisement Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are hardly the only states militating against Hindi. There's a growing impatience with it in states such as Punjab, Telangana, Kerala and West Bengal. The battle has also sparked a larger debate on the need to protect India's linguistic diversity, with a fear that regional languages and dialects are being steamrolled by the Centre's push for Hindi. In Tamil Nadu, where the anti-Hindi agitation dates back to 1937 when the C. Rajagopalachari-led Madras Presidency government tried to make Hindi compulsory in schools, the debate has reopened old fissures and anxieties. Chief minister M.K. Stalin has called the NEP an instrument of 'Hindi colonialism'; even as his son and deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin posted on X that this is not just a 'language struggle, but also an ethnic struggle to protect Tamil culture'. Stalin also crossed swords with Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan after the latter allegedly threatened to withhold funds till Tamil Nadu this year, the Punjab government had made Punjabi a mandatory subject in the state's schools, saying students will have to study it as a primary subject to clear Class X. This came after it opposed the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) draft norms for holding Class X board exams twice a year, claiming Punjabi has been left out of the subject list. The Telangana government too has now enforced Telugu as a mandatory language for students from Class I to X in all year, West Bengal implemented its State Education Policy (SEP), 2023 which, experts say, is essentially a covert replication of the NEP. The state government had earlier claimed it would not adopt the NEP, but the SEP introduces several NEP-like reforms, including the semester system in schools, interdisciplinary studies, four-year undergraduate courses and abolishing the detention system. The Mamata Banerjee-led administration's receptiveness is evident in its adoption of the three-language policy. But Hindi is a touchy point. Prof. Tarun Kanti Naskar, general secretary of the All India Save Education Committee, described the NEP-in-disguise thus: 'Hindi is not mandatory in the NEP, but the Centre has left no doubt that it is the only third optional language. Bengal has done nothing to protest, unlike Tamil Nadu.'advertisementThe NCERT texts are another front in the battle, the provocation starting with the titles themselves. For instance, the Standard VI and VII English textbooks are named 'Poorvi' as against the previous 'Honeysuckle' and 'Honeycomb', respectively, while the math text has been rechristened 'Ganit Prakash'. A flummoxed Kerala government says this is 'against federal principles and constitutional values' and a bid to 'foist Hindi on Malayalis'. The NCERT has also drawn flak for dropping all references to the Mughals and the Delhi Sultanate in the Standard VII textbooks, while adding references to obscure Indian dynasties, the Kumbh Mela, 'sacred geography' and central initiatives like 'Make in India'. Critics have panned the attempt to airbrush and politicise history under the guise of NCERT official, however, says the new language texts were named after 'pan-Indian' musical instruments, ragas and concepts such as Bansuri, Malhaar, Sarangi and Khyal. Most would point out that the northward tilt fairly shines through, but the official says this nomenclature aligns with NEP's vision of embracing joyful learning, cultural rootedness and integration of arts and music into PATTERNSThe official push for Hindi comes at a time when economic migration from the economically weak Hindi-speaking states is growing, thus leading to a rising presence of this linguistic cohort across India. In Maharashtra, for instance, the 2011 census revealed that, in Mumbai, respondents identifying Hindi as their mother tongue had grown by around 40 per cent from 2.6 million in 2001 to around 3.6 million. The Marathi manoos is still the city's largest ethno-linguistic group, but their numbers fell from 4.5 million in 2001 to 4.4 million in fact, the saturation in urban centres like Mumbai has led to many north Indians shifting to smaller towns and even villages where they work in hotels, restaurants and as labour in industries and farms. This has led to nativist parties like the Shiv Sena and the MNS choosing to focus their energies on opposing Hindi IAS officer, author and president of the state language advisory committee Laxmikant Deshmukh has written to Fadnavis opposing the move to make Hindi mandatory from Class I. He considers the imposition 'a cultural attack on Marathi by the Hindi speakers' while pointing out how the migrants, largely, do not bother to learn and historian Manu S. Pillai says he doesn't see any reason why Hindi should receive 'special state patronage'. 'It's a dated notion that nations must have a common language to stick together. We are a diverse country and instead of pushing our diversity into a political straitjacket, we should let all our languages thrive,' he says. GET anti-Hindi protest byDMK workers in Chennai AN IDEOLOGICAL PROJECTG.N. Devy, cultural scholar and the man behind the People's Linguistic Survey of India, notes that the number of Hindi speakers in India is inflated, with 'Hindi subsuming many smaller languages'. According to the 2011 Census, the country had over 528 million Hindi speakers, but that figure combined 206 million people whose mother tongues had been grouped under Hindi, including Bhojpuri (51 million speakers), Chhattisgarhi (16 million) and Kumaoni (2 million). So, the actual number of native Hindi speakers is around 320 million. Considering that the census had a base of 1,210 million, this meant that at best a third of the population has Hindi as mother tongue. 'How can 30 per cent of the population impose their will on the other 70 per cent? This is not right in any political modality,' says questioning is in line with the perception that the BJP-RSS have long been pushing a unitarian model on India when it comes to religion, language and culture. Author-academician Apoorvanand says the 'Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan' push was linked to the Hindutva project, but the emphasis on one language, one nation, one religion and one culture was in line with a European model of national spokesperson Prem Shukla dismisses such criticism, saying the three-language policy has been in place since the 1960s, even before the birth of the present-day BJP. 'The NEP has, in fact, liberalised language teaching by changing this to English, the local mother tongue, and another Indian language,' he added, while denying claims that the BJP was trying to foist Hindi on anyone. Apoorvanand notes that the three-language formula adopted in the 1960s was not based on pedagogic and educational principles. It was done to integrate the country by learning a language not spoken in that state. For instance, a Khasi speaker could learn Bengali, and a Bihari could learn Telugu. But the 'Hindi belt' adopted Hindi, English and Sanskrit as part of the formula, even as some southern states like Karnataka and Kerala were teaching Hindi voluntarily. 'The Hindi states refuse to integrate with the non-Hindi-speaking states and their culture, but are now forcing the non-Hindi ones to integrate with them,' Apoorvanand Shidore of the MNS points to other attempts to push the cultural dominance of Hindi. For instance, the Reserve Bank of India mandates that banks also conduct their business in the local language. The MNS had asked the Indian Banks' Association to provide such services and put up boards in Marathi and also launched a short-lived protest to ensure this was implemented. 'This is part of the Sangh's 'soft power experiment', trying to attain cultural hegemony using entry points like curriculum, books, the education system,' says the end, it all comes down to whether groups and communities can respect each other and try not to straitjacket the other. In his book, India: A Linguistic Civilisation, Devy argues that the 'idea of India' can never be a singular one. 'Plurality and diversity are its inalienable attributes,' he points out. Amen to that.—with Arkamoy Datta MajumdarSubscribe to India Today MagazineTune InMust Watch
Time of India
3 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
BharatNet Phase-III: Polycab wins ₹6,447.54-crore deal for Karnataka, Goa and Puducherry circle
NEW DELHI: State-controlled Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited ( BSNL ) has awarded a ₹6,447.54-crore deal to homegrown electrical wires and optical cable manufacturer Polycab to construct and maintain a middle-mile network under the BharatNet Phase-III programme in Karnataka, Goa and Puducherry telecom circle. '...Polycab India Limited has executed an agreement with BSNL as the Project Implementation Agency for Design, Supply, Construction, installation, upgradation, operation and maintenance of middle mile network of Bharat Net in Karnataka, Goa and Puducherry Telecom Circle against Package No. 4 amounting ₹6,447.54 crores (inclusive of GST),' Polycab said in a regulatory filing in aftermarket hours Tuesday. The deal value comprises a capital expenditure (capex) of ₹3,741.92-crore and operating expenditure (opex) of ₹2,245.15-crore, and an opex of ₹460.47-crore for the existing network, as per the filing. BharatNet , a rural telecom connectivity project, is aimed at providing non-discriminatory access to broadband connectivity to all telecom operators (telcos). BSNL has previously awarded contracts to Polycab, ITI Limited, Sterlite Technologies (STL), Telecommunications Consultants of India Limited (TCIL), and Pratap Technocrats, among others, under multiple packages of the BharatNet Phase-III programme. ETTelecom reported on August 7, 2024, that the Telecommunications Consultants of India Limited (TCIL), ITI Limited, indigenous optical fiber cable (OFC) makers HFCL, STL, Polycab, and Pratap Technocrats, are among the bidders for the third phase of the Centre's ambitious BharatNet programme. Indigenous OFC makers Polycab, STL and HFCL presented solo bids while as many as 18 bidders, including G R Infraprojects, Vindhya Telelinks, Pace Digitek Infra Private Limited, Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), Bharat Electronics Limited, Megha Engineering, and others, took the consortium route. A total of 21 bidders put in their bids under the BharatNet 3 program for Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West), Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Jammu & Kashmir, North East Region – I and North East Region – II, and others. In early 2024, the Centre rolled out the BharatNet III programme with an outlay of Rs 65,000-crore. The last date to submit bids was August 6, 2024. The tender is part of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government's Rs 1.39 lakh crore BharatNet programme which aims to provide last-mile broadband connectivity, and upgrade the existing 164,000 gram panchayats, as well as, connect 47,000 gram panchayats under the new model.
New Indian Express
3 days ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Caste census: BJP livid, calls out Congress's ‘false propaganda'
NEW DELHI: The BJP on Tuesday alleged that the Congress is carrying out 'false and misleading' propaganda regarding the Census 2027, as it hopes to gain power by claiming that society is falling apart due to the Narendra Modi-led government's decision to include caste enumeration in the nationwide exercise. Lambasting the Congress for 'misleading' people with false claims, BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi alleged that the prime objective of the opposition party by resorting to such a 'petty' act is to create confusion in society and gain power. Since it is witnessing its objective falling apart, the Congress has resorted to spreading 'falsehood, deception and lies', he told reporters at the BJP headquarters on Tuesday. Trivedi stated that government media releases had mentioned that, in addition to the census, a socio-economic assessment and a caste census would also be conducted. 'Marred by its myopic view and blurred vision, they (Congress) are unable to see and understand this categorical explanation,' he charged.
