Narendra Modi is being commonly and
widely portrayed as a very clever, astute, sometimes scheming, politician who
has mastered the art of winning elections.
What a pity that those learned Lutyenite and free-loader commentators
who engage in such shallow and biased analysis are not able to see beyond their
twisted, forked and snooty nose.
The truth is that PM Modi has initiated and seen through some of the most
important and beneficial changes for Indian Society.
Let us start with his very first one
– the removal (or drastically narrowing down) of
the RED LIGHT (Laal Batti) Culture and privilege. While everyone before 2014 was complaining
about it and writing learned tomes on it, Modi came and did it. It requires courage, a sense of priority and
a willingness to “face the consequences, come what may”. Is this not a huge cultural and social change
in our Society where we are still awed by rank, aristocracy, hierarchy, dynasty
and lineage ?
He then proceeded to delete and remove from the statute books all old and
archaic laws that no longer made any sense as they had become irrelevant in the
changed context. This was
also a courageous change from the old mindset where we were conditioned to believe
that whatever the British had done should not be touched, modified, and most
certainly, not deleted. Once again a
courageous act that brought about a change in India’s social fabric by giving
it the strength to do “what it felt was right for it and discarding what was
not”.
He then did
away with pernicious practice of getting each and every document copy certified
by Notaries before it was accepted by the authorities. Not only it
meant a cost to the common man but also involve huge effort and harassment and
delay as Notaries are not available everywhere.
Trust is what has replaced this practice by accepting self-attestation
as equivalent to Notary Certification with the Authorities having right to
verify with Original whenever required.
Ayushman Bharat
गरीबों के लिए वरदान साबित हो रही
मोदी सरकार की महत्वाकांक्षी 'आयुष्मान भारत योजना'। ✓ 8.90 करोड़ से अधिक ई-कार्ड्स जारी
किए गए। ✓ 32.11 लाख से अधिक मरीज योजना का
ले चुके हैं लाभ। ✓ 16,001 अस्पताल पैनल में हो चुके हैं
शामिल।
Just look at the numbers - 8.93 crores registered, 32 lakh beneficiaries and over 16000
Hospitals (Private & Government) empaneled and wiling to provide
services to such patients.
This is a gigantic leap in providing
health services to the economically and socially backward members of our huge
population who were condemned to live with (till God’s mercy) major diseases
like cancer, kidney failure, tuberculosis, weakened knees and back, simply
because they had no recourse to affordable health support.
A healthier rural and semi – urban
population will change the social equations on the ground giving this suffering
segment much hope and relief which, in turn,
will strengthen to fight life’s battles on their own terms and with
renewed vigour.
Not the least of the changes we will
see because of the Ayushmaan Bharat Yojana is that fleecing doctors in the
urban areas will see a fall in rural footfalls as will the quacks in the
villages and semi-urban areas.
Internet reach in the
villages
A report from The Economic Times
of March 6, 2019, tells it all.
Internet usage in the country has exceeded half
a billion people for first time, pegged at 566 million, driven by rural
internet growth and usage.
PTI Mar 06, 2019, 05.56 PM IST
India's
internet users expected to register double digit growth to reach 627 million in 2019, driven by rapid
internet growth in rural areas, market research agency Kantar IMRB
Wednesday said.
Nearly
293 million active internet users reside in urban India, while there are 200
million active users in rural India, it said.
While
internet users grew by 7 percent in urban India, reaching 315 million users in
2018, digital adoption is now being propelled by rural India,
registering a 35 percent growth in internet users over the past year.
Because
of "Increased availability of bandwidth, cheap data plans and increased
awareness, the penetration in rural India has increased from 9 per cent in 2015
to 25 percent in 2018,", a 177 %
increase on 3 years !
Bihar registered the highest growth in internet users across
both urban and rural areas, registering
a growth of 35 percent over last year.
The
report also noted that the internet usage is more gender balanced than ever
before with women comprising 42 percent of total internet users.
The following are important points to
note about the above assessment on
Internet Reach in the country.
a) Rural
users are 2/3rd of the Urban users and are growing at 35 % as
compared to Urban growth rate of 7 % Just a couple of years and there will be
as many internet users in rural/semi-urban areas as compared to India’s urban
areas – can you even fathom the huge “power shift” this means in terms of access to information
instantly – a privilege that, till today, only the educated, English – speaking
elite comprising mainly the Khan Market, Lutyenite and Award Waapasi gangs
enjoyed till date ? No wonder, NONE of them,
EVER have praised this development in India.
b)
The
government’s rural reach effort has been hugely successful with 177 % growth in
3 years.
c) Not
only rural areas are catching up with urban ones, but backward states like
Bihar are catching up with the developed areas of the country. IF
“information is the next Oil”
then clearly the government is highly successful in spreading “equality” very determinedly.
d)
Finally,
just as many women are part of this process as are men, which is a great boost for gender equality.
All in all, the above will lead to a huge churning of
social equations across regional imbalance, gender bias and urban – rural
divide. All credit for this must go
the Narendra Modi who has single-mindedly pursued this “digitization of the
country” through the past 5 years.
Electricity in all
villages
FIRSTPOST.com
Debobrat Ghose Apr 30, 2018 20:45:36 IST
With Leisang village in Manipur getting connected to
the national power grid on 28 April, all Indian villages now have access to
electricity.
After coming to power in 2014, the NDA government,
through its rural electrification programme Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti
Yojna (DDUGJY), stepped up efforts to reach out to villages without
electricity.
According to government data, all of the 597,464 census villages in India have
been electrified. When the NDA
government came to power in 2014, there were 18,452 un-electrified census
villages. One may recall that Narendra Modi had promised to electrify all
un-electrified villages within 1,000 days on his Independence Day address on 15
August 2015.
ODF India
9.16 cr toilets built, 5.5 lakh villages declared ODF since 2014:
Govt
.
By PTI | Feb 07, 2019, 06.24 PM IST
NEW
DELHI: More than nine crore toilets have been constructed across the country till
February
5 this year under the Swachh Bharat
Mission-Gramin (SBM-G) launched in 2014, increasing the sanitation coverage in rural areas to over
98 per cent, the government said Thursday.
Giving
out the details of toilets constructed under the mission, Minister of State for
Drinking Water and Sanitation Ramesh Chandappa Jigajinagi said so far 27 states
and 5.5 lakh villages have been declared open defecation free (ODF).
"Under
SBM(G), 9.16 crore toilets have been constructed till February 5, 2019. As a result, sanitation
coverage in the rural areas of the country, which was 38.7 per cent on October
2, 2014, has increased to more than 98 per cent.
"Twenty-seven states, 601 districts, 5,934 blocks, 2,46,116 gram panchayats and 5,50,151 villages have been declared ODF," he told the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
"Twenty-seven states, 601 districts, 5,934 blocks, 2,46,116 gram panchayats and 5,50,151 villages have been declared ODF," he told the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
Just try to fathom the stupendous impact this accomplishment
will have on the entire social fabric of the country. First of all India enters a distinctly
different genre of development with this achievement. Admittedly there are still many gaps - many toilets do not have water, some do not have
doors, some are choked whilst others are
not getting cleaned regularly. Nonetheless,
it is still a fact that almost the entire
country now has access to closed toilets and need not resort to “open
defecation” for lack of another option.
Amongst its many impact, dignity to women and infection-free sanitation
option to children must surely count as its biggest achievement. This will do away with the mushrooming of roadside
Romeos wanting to have cheap thrills by troubling women in the fields.
The remarkable thing about this
development is not, merely, its
achievement but that someone in the highest echelons of the Government
thought about it and took it up as a priority task for implementation. The number of people who had ridiculed Narendra
Modi for talking of something so mundane and lowly as toilets in his first Independence Day speech must surely be
squirming at this achievement which is being applauded the world over.
It has clearly been a “match – winner” as witnessed by the high rural support that the NDA secured in the 2019
elections, cutting across caste, community and religious lines. It is notable that not a single PM before this
ever took up this issue in the public domain, never deigned himself/herself to stoop down
to tackle this “embarrassing situation” and, of course, never put this on a Mission mode.
Smokeless Cooking
The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana
(PMUY) is a scheme by the Government of India to provide subsidized LPG
gas connections to female members who fall below the poverty line. The scheme
has been a huge success since its launch on May 1, 2016 and is set to
meet the next big milestone of achieving 8 crore household connections within
the first hundred days of the government. Till date, the scheme has garnered
7.2 crore connections. In other words, about 93 to 94 per cent households now
have access to cooking gas.
(Source
: By: ZeeBiz WebTeam Edited By: Harish Dugh
Updated: Wed, Jul 17,
2019, 01:02 pm - https://www.zeebiz.com/india/news-ujjwala-yojana-subsidized-lpg-gas-connections-pmuy-to-reach-80-mn-connections-in-just-100-days-105864)
What does this mean for the common citizen
? It means
a) Huge
amount of convenience for the rural ladies.
b) Freedom
from the drudgery of gathering firewood and stoking up the chulha
c) Freedom
from Smoke and associated ill-health
d) Tremendous
amount of reduction in cooking time as there is no “chulha revving up time”
involved any more
Does this not count as huge social and cultural change ? Many women in rural and semi-urban
areas are reported to have started small, wage – earning work because of time
saved from cooking and thus improve their economic status.
Housing for all
The Housing for All by 2022 initiative was
launched by the Modi government within five months of assuming office. As many as 1.53 cr
houses have been constructed under the flagship housing scheme Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, interim Finance Minister
Piyush Goyal said in his Budget speech on Feb 1, 2019.
Till now over 93,000
people from this income group (MIG) have availed the Rs 1,960 crore interest
subsidy from the Centre, which has been disbursed through banks.
Overall, until
December 30 this year, around 3.39 lakh beneficiaries have availed the CLSS
under the PMAY (Urban) and the total subsidy released was Rs 7543 crore.
Does this not signal a huge shift in
the way people are going to now live in the rural and semi-urban areas as
compared to the past ? Earlier, a huge majority just did
not have houses of their own and those that did, did not have pucca house –
just a hut or an enclosure with make-shift walls and roof that were always
victim to the vagaries of nature.
Can you imagine the huge personal
uplift it gives to the spirit and morale of a family which begins to live in a
proper brick and mortar house as compared a
temporary or weak cottage/hut ?
Does this not count for a social
change and a subtle shift in the social power equation with the urban and semi-urban fortunate
that were born into wealth and “pucca” housing ?
Modi Govt. has cancelled registration of 14,800
NGOs in last 5 yrs for FCRA violations
Union Minister of
State for Home Nityanand Rai responding to a written question in Lok Sabha said
the registrations were cancelled because NGOs committed violations of the
provisions of the FCRA.
What does
this mean ? It means that the privileged and connected
few who were rampantly looting the government and, therefore, the country by sucking up funds under the NGO
umbrella for all kinds of activities – many (the most innocent of them) for
personal gain, several for various nefarious activities, many of which having
an anti-national tilt - will no
longer enjoy this easy money loot. No wonder the entire Khan Market gang is up in arms against
PM Modi.
Govt. servants all trooping to office before 0930
hours, including Maharaja IAS Officers
This is
one of the biggest and most visible social change we are seeing since 2014 when
NDA 1 first came to power – everybody in Government Offices, particularly
Central Government Offices – is on their desk on or before 0930. And nobody
leaves before 1730 hours.
NO political
leader or government in the past has been able to instill this
discipline and fear in them. It must surely count as one of the biggest social
changes of our times which is having a far – reaching impact. Consider these changes :
a)
Routines at lakhs of homes have changed – getting
up time, tea-time, breakfast time and the like
b)
Traffic patterns and rush hour have subtly
changed
c)
Golf Clubs & corner tea-shop business has
changed / dropped.
True, as
the naysayers are itching to rebut, this
does not mean or ensure that these Government servants are working better or
more – they be coming and leaving on time but they don’t do any work while they
are there.
Yes, certainly possible but increasingly improbable
because of another initiative of Narendra Modi – sacking
people for inefficiency ! Since 2014, over a 1000 lower level
employees have been sacked form Central Government service on grounds of
inefficiency and/or corruption.
In the last
2 months i.e. June onwards, 12 Income
Tax Officers, 15 Officers from CBIT and CBIC and 17 Senior Officers from
various Central Ministries, Departments and PSUs who had attained the age of 50
years and above, have been compulsorily retired, under Fundamental Rules 56(j) on grounds of inefficiency and / or corruption. Can you imagine what kind of strong message it has sent to all the remaining Government employees ?
For the first time in the history of Independent
India, Senior Government officials have been sacked for “inefficiency” apart
from corruption. Earlier they merrily
carried on with both. This has hugely
impacted the leviathan Government bureaucracy
who are certainly going to be a little more alert, a little more speedy
and a little more correct which doing their jobs instead of the “laid-back,
couldn’t care less attitude that they have displayed for decades.
Clearly
things are changing and the “impregnable halo” that people who were in Government Service “cannot be touched till they retire” has now been pierced. This in itself is a major social change which
will also change the culture of work and working in Government service –
hopefully, for the better.
True,
this is just a beginning and a small one at that, but it is a positive one and in the right direction
and will, over a period of time, bring about the desired change to make our
babudom more responsive, more responsible and more productive.
These
powers were always available to each of the previous Governments and Prime
Minsters but it is only Narendra Modi who has taken the bull by the horns and
has had the courage to take action where he has judged it to be so necessary.
Does
this not amount a huge social change ?
35.5 Crore Jan Dhan Accounts opened having total deposit of over Rs. 1 Lakh crores.
When Modi talked of Direct Benefit
Transfer, self-appointed experts like P. Chidambaram laughed and said where are
the Bank Accounts ? When Modi got these
Jan Dhan Bank Accounts with Zero balance facility, experts like P. Chidambaram
mocked and said where is the money – there are no balances ? When the Accounts
now have over Rs. 1 lakh crore, experts like P. Chidambaram have started claiming
that the UPA had also opened such Accounts !!
Can you imagine the huge impact the
opening of such Accounts has had in changing the “money management habits” of
people in the rural and semi-urban areas ?
First and foremost there are far less slippages and leakage to middlemen
who were collecting huge amounts of “grease money” when government scheme payments were made in
Cash.
Secondly, these account holders now
have a sense of pride that they also have a Bank Account which has a balance
and earns interest for them. This
is a big, big social and cultural change.
The only people not happy with
this development are the hoity –toity, high and mighty PLUs (People Like
Us) who, now, do
not have exclusivity of access to the banking system ; even the hoi
polloi, the looked down upon PLTs (People Like Them) are having access to the Banking System.
Cash thefts from homes have dramatically
dropped simple because there are no large cache of cash to steal ! Money transfer has become much easier,
quicker and safer through the banking system.
The reduction in use of cash also means a reduction in fake currency
rackets.
Speaking in Hindi in all Public and Official
Inter-actions abroad
What a boost this has given to National
Pride that our Prime Minster speaks in an Indian Language without any
hesitation or awkwardness as do leaders of various other countries in their own
language when they go abroad !
It has raised India’s stature and,
indeed, when you travel abroad these days to popular tourist sites, you will find many guides greeting you with a
“Namaste” and attempting to say a few
words in broken Hindi. I myself experienced this in Venice and Rome. This is a huge morale booster for all
Indians.
This is also another nail in the
coffin of the “English – speaking elite” who had created an eco– system whereby not knowing
English made you an automatic “discard” while not knowing proper English made
you an “outcast” and not knowing proper English pronunciation made you a “criminal”
!
The Introduction and operationalizing of the IBC
(Insolvency and bankruptcy Code)
For the first time it has become “actually” punishable if you garner public money in the
name of investment but “steal” it for your private pleasures.
No one is, now, exempt
from the reaches of the law – if you have stolen you
will pay. How many owners have lost their companies – did it ever
happen before ? Money is no longer
everything – of course, it can still buy you some time, some favours, but it is no longer a guarantee that you
will never be touched.
This has had a major impact on our
Social Fabric as the rich are no longer exempt from being apprehended and
punished if they have stolen public money as compared to the pas when with this
same stolen money and their connections they could buy their way out of any
difficulties – witness how the founders are being cornered and being held
accountable for their financial misdeeds – be it Mallya, Nirav Modi, Mehul
Choksi, Ruia brothers (of Essar), Singhals (of Bhushan Steel), Naresh Goyal (of
Jet Airways) and countless others (many of whom have coughed up large amounts
of money to settle their cases which has given partial relief to various
creditors including Public Sector Banks and small vendors.
This change has given the common and
the not-so-well-to-do citizen hope that
their funds are better protected and the scales of Justice are no longer as
uneven as they were before.
Padma Awards to the
unknown & the lowly
This is one of the biggest social
changes introduced by Narendra Modi – the seeking of national opinion from all
and sundry for the prestigious National Awards.
As is well known, in the earlier
system instituted and perpetuated by the Congress, UPA and the English-speaking
PLUs in the bureaucracy, not only the
selection and finalisation of names for the awards was the preserve of the
privileged few, the likely
recipients only came from a blessed minority who were either related, connected
or known to these decision-makers.
Modi has democratized the entire
process now. First and foremost, by
inviting nominations from the whole nation he has ensured that the net is cast,
far and wide. The taking away of this
exclusive preserve form the hands of the privileged few has led to tremendous
heart-burns and is one of the many reasons for the hatred that the Lutyens and
Khan Market Gangs harbour towards Modi.
Because the net is cast, far and wide
(Anyone can nominate persons for this award, simply by logging in on https://padmaawards.gov.in/Login.aspx and following the process enumerated at https://padmaawards.gov.in/PDFS/process.pdf) we now get to know about and,
therefore, recognize and award so many silent
heroes and toilers that have been giving yeoman service to nation and society
by their devoted work.
Can you ever imagine a traditional
“Dai” (midwife) getting awarded for her role in delivering babies at home – In
1940, when Narasamma
was only 20 years old when she helped bring the first baby into the
world. ‘Sulagatti’ Narasamma has been
delivering babies for 70 years in backward areas of Tumkur district in
Karnataka. And her life-long services to women whose children she helped
deliver without taking a penny were finally recognised – she was honoured
with a Padma Shri on January 25, 2018 .
And how was she recognised – through the innovative (and privileged
coterie-breaking) step of PM Modi to throw open the Nominations for Padma
Awards to the whole nation and every citizen.
Here are a few more such cases from
the hundred who have benefited so far.
Chewang Norphel, a
79-year-old civil engineer, put his engineering skills to a better use and
created artificial glaciers to provide water in the cold and dry mountainous
region of Ladakh. (Padma Shri – 2015)
Jadav Payeng saw an increasing number of
reptile deaths in Assam and started planting Bamboo in an area that had been
washed away by floods. Today, that same land hosts 1,360 acres of verdant
jungle called Molai Forest, named after Jadav “Molai” Payeng, the man who made
this possible single-handedly ! (Padma
Shri – 2015)
Arunima Sinha, a former national level
volleyball player from Uttar Pradesh, lost her leg when some robbers pushed her
out of a moving train. Two years later she became the first woman amputee to
climb the Mount Everest. (Padma Shri – 2015).
Manjula Anagani is an Indian gynecologist and obstetrician specializing in
minimally invasive surgeries. She has several innovations to her name in
minimally invasive surgeries on neo-vagina formation. She pioneered the art of
Laparoscopy in late 1990s, at a time when Laparoscopy was still an emerging
technology and it was primarily still a man’s world wherein all the techniques
and equipment that came about were designed to suit the ergonomics of the male
surgeon. (NOTE that she pioneered
Laparascopy in late 1990s but it was only 17-18 years later that the Modi
Government’s invitation to the nation to pick Padma Award winners brought this
talented doctor to the eyes of the Authorities) (Padma Shri – 2015).
Sarungbam Bimola Kumari Devi is Chief
Medical Officer of Imphal west region in Manipur. She has been working in the
strife-ridden state and giving her valuable contribution since 1979. She
mostly works in rural areas. (NOTE,
again that she has been working since 1979 but got recognised only 35 years
later because of the Modi Government’s invitation to the nation to pick Padma
Award winners) (Padma Shri – 2015).
Uddhab Bharali,
the innovator invented 24 machines between the years 1990 and 2005.
In 2006, Uddhab invented a pomegranate seed peeling machine
which can de-seed approximately 55 kgs of pomegranates in an hour. This machine
actually helped him in building his identity as an innovator.
However, it was only in 2015 that Modi’s Open Nomination
Scheme for Padma Awards brought him to the forefront and he was awarded a
richly deserved Padma Shri.
Saalumarada Thimmakka, 106-year-old Padma Shri Winner
When she was unable to give birth to a child,
Saalumarada Thimmakka started planting banyan trees. She planted around
385 banyan trees between Hulikal and Kudur in Magadi Taluk of Ramnagar district
at her own expense and then took care of them as her own children. The Open Nomination Scheme identified her and
she was awarded the Padma Shri in 2019.
Chinna Pillai - Madurai’s Iron Lady
Chinna Pillai was married at the age of 12, and soon took to toiling on the
fields of Alagar Kovil, a village in the Madurai district.
Thanks to her consistent efforts to drag the community out of
its misery, Pullucheri, has become a model of self-sufficiency. It
has its own banking system—Kalanjiam—a microcredit movement, which has
empowered hundreds of women and their families in the last three decades now.
But it took more than 20 years after her State recognition for
her work to be recognised, nationally, when the Modi
Government conferred her, most recently in 2019, the Padma Shri Award for her
service to the country. This clearly
happened only because Narendra Modi opened
up the Padma Nominations to the entire country
instead of a coterie that
shamelessly engaged in incestuous engagement for picking award winners.
Is this not a huge social equation change that PM Modi has
brought about by the single, simple and yet hugely innovative step of opening
the Padma Award Nominations all the citizens of the entire country ?
The Lutyens and Khan Market brigade continue to live in their
dream world, believing that Modi is just
an aberration in their “Zamindari Raj”
and a strong whiff of verbal diarrhea by their Knight in Shining Armour,
delivered in clipped British accented English will drown him away.
Actually, it is good
for the country that they think so because it means they are never going to
look at actually “delivering something to and for the people” and the people
are, therefore going to return the compliment by never voting them back to
power.
hemendra k.
varma
Mumbai
July 28,
2019
