Despite losing a closely-fought battle with Congress in Madhya Pradesh, outgoing CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan will embark on an Abhar yatra to express gratitude to people of MP for giving him 15 years to serve them. The yatra will begin next week and will cover all the 52 districts of MP.
According to reports, Shivraj Singh will base his yatra on the fact that despite getting fewer seats than Congress, BJP got slightly more vote share in elections even though it was facing 15 years of anti-incumbency in the state. BJP managed to get 41.02% votes against Congress’ 40.89%, but former got only 109 seats against 104 of latter.
“We have 41.02% votes against Congress’s 40.89% though we fell short of the magic number. The party is thankful to voters and Shivraj Singh will take out ‘Aabhar Yatra’ in all 52 districts to express his feelings.” BJP state spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal said. He also added that a detailed programme is yet to be discussed.
This yatra is also aimed at boosting the morale of workers and preparing them for 2019 general elections where BJP is targetting to retain its 26 Lok Sabha seats from MP. It will be only three months before the Election Commission implements the model code of conduct in the state.
On Thursday Kamal Nath was appointed as the face of CM of MP by Congress president Rahul Gandhi, following high tensions between Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamal Nath cadre. This was followed by Akali Dal leader and Delhi MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa accusing Congress President Rahul Gandhi of rubbing salt to the injuries of the Sikh community by appointing Kamal Nath as CM of MP.
On Wednesday, when asked whether Shivraj’s future plans to move to Delhi, Chouhan said “Meri aatma yahan basti hai (my soul belongs in Madhya Pradesh). I would live and die in Madhya Pradesh but won’t go anywhere.”
It is reported that Shivraj may soon be joining Union Cabinet and contest elections from Vidisha in 2019 general elections.
Shivraj Singh has a reputation for widely doing yatras on foot. He is also known as ”Panv-Panv wale bhaiya (one who always remains on foot)” amongst his followers.
On the other hand, after much speculation, Congress has also announced Ashok Gehlot as the Chief Minister of Rajasthan and Sachin Pilot as the Deputy Chief Minister.
The Supreme Court has dismissed a curative petition challenging the appointment of IPS officer Rakesh Asthana to the post of CBI special director. The apex court decision came while hearing the curative petition filed by Prashant Bhushan representing NGO Common Cause. Bhushan had filed the plea to reconsider the Supreme Court’s November judgment upholding the appointment of IPS officer to the CBI, and it was the third petition filed by him in the case.
The Supreme Court on January 23 had rejected a review petition filed by the NGO against the SC judgement upholding the appointment of Asthana to the post of CBI special director, saying there was no error on record to merit a review of the order. That review petition was filed by the NGO after SC had dismissed its original petition seeking cancellation of appointment of Rakesh Asthana as Special Direction or CBI in November last year, saying it cannot question a “unanimous” decision taken by the selection committee and the decision is not illegal.
After the rejection of both the original PIL and the review petition by the apex court, the NGO had again filed a curative petition on the same matter. Rejecting that petition, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said, “We have gone through the curative petition and connected papers. In our opinion, no case is made out within the parameters indicated in the decision of this court.”
It may be noted that while Prashant Bhushan and his NGO Common Cause is trying to remove Rakesh Asthana making allegations of corruptions against him, in London Vijay Mallya was using those allegations in the court hearing the Indian government’s plea to extradite Mallya to India. Mallya’s lawyers had argued that Asthana, who was leading the CBI’s case against Mallya, is corrupt and politically motivated. The UK court had rejected all these allegations and had ruled that there is no evidence on allegations made against Asthana.
The Supreme Court’s verdict is being seen as the second major setback for both the Congress party and Prashant Bhushan, as the Supreme Court had earlier rejected a plea to order a probe on the Rafale deal. Congress President Rahul Gandhi had used the ongoing CBI internal rift to score a political point and had accused the CBI special director Rakesh Asthana of “infiltrating” CBI. He had referred to Asthana as the blue-eyed boy of Prime Minister Modi.
The PM’s blue-eyed boy, Gujarat cadre officer, of Godra SIT fame, infiltrated as No. 2 into the CBI, has now been caught taking bribes. Under this PM, the CBI is a weapon of political vendetta. An institution in terminal decline that’s at war with itself. https://t.co/Z8kx41kVxX
With Supreme Court deciding to reject the petition challenging the appointment of Rakesh Asthana, it has resulted in a huge embarrassment for the Rahul Gandhi. Earlier, the Congress party had suffered a huge blow after the Supreme Court did not entertain a petition seeking a court-monitored investigation into the Rafale deal. The Court said that it has not found any material to show that there has been any commercial favouritism and perception of individuals can’t be the basis for an inquiry in the sensitive issue of defence procurement.
Congress-supporting troll, true to his word, is back spreading fake news on his website. We had earlier reported how ViralinIndia.net, a fake news website with anti-Modi and pro-Islamist propaganda, was being run by a pro-Congress troll Abhishek Mishra. It was ‘temporarily’ shut down as the team was busy ‘covering the elections’. As the five-state assembly elections concluded last week, the website is back up and running spreading bizarre fake news and fake narrative.
On 6th December, the fake news website published an article claiming that a watch worth Rs. 15 lakh was stolen from Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas’ wedding reception in Delhi.
The article claiming Rs. 15 lakh watch stolen from Priyanka Chopra’s wedding reception.
The reception was attended by Prime Minister Modi, who has a habit of stealing from his childhood, claims the report.
The article claiming PM Modi is prime suspect of stealing a watch.
“In his childhood, Modi stole all jewellery from his mother’s cupboard and ran away. Modi’s father died out of this shock,” the report said.
At first, we thought perhaps this is a bad satire, and tried looking for tags or disclaimer that could show it is satire. We could not find any. Over and above the anti-Modi outlandish accusations made by this watch, we found out that the ‘luxury watch’ image the website has used is actually available for Rs. 399 on Amazon.
Rs. 15 lakh watch available for Rs. 399 on Amazon.
The claim about Prime Minister Narendra Modi having stolen some belongings from his home in his childhood is a fake news spread by pro-Congress ecosystem, and the same was repeated on this website.
We casually glanced through other articles on this fake news pro-Congress propaganda website. Another article claims that Prime Minister Modi while campaigning for Rajasthan elections in Sikar, ‘ran away’ when people started shouting ‘Chowkidar chor hai’. The article claims that Modi ‘escaped’ in a helicopter. To verify, we checked out the video of Modi’s rally in Sikar. In the hour-long video, we could not see Modi ‘fleeing’ the spot in a helicopter.
Before ‘temporarily’ shutting the website
Before the website resumed its operations on 3rd December, last article was published on 8th October. One such article claimed that the accusations against PM Modi have reached the Supreme Court and following the 10th October verdict, Modi may soon end up in jail. On 10th October, the Supreme Court refused to issue a notice in Rafale deal petition but asked the government to furnish the detail of the decision making process in a sealed cover, without technological parameters or suitability of the aircraft. Today, the Supreme Court dismissed all the petitions for investigation.
The fake news factory does not stop on this website alone. On a Facebook page named “I support Ravish Kumar” (NDTV India journalist), ‘ViralinIndia.net’ has shared a fake news that in today’s verdict, Supreme Court has rapped the Modi government and that the Opposition and people of India want to know what the details of the Rafale deal.
Another Facebook page created in support of Sonia Gandhi has shared another post with ‘viralinIndia.net’ logo, which claims that former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, on his successor Urjit Patel’s exit claimed that “Narendra Modi has ruined the country.”
Fake post on Raghuram Rajan
While Rajan did express concern about Patel’s exit from RBI, he never said that Modi has ruined India. There are dozens of such pages that share such fake news and quotes credited to ‘Viral In India’.
Social networking platforms have recently said they are trying to take concrete steps to curb spreading the fake news menace. These platforms are regularly used by fake news peddlers to amplify the fake news. Despite this, the website, as well as various Facebook pages run by Mishra and his team, continue spreading fake news.
It should be noted that Abhishek Mishra is based in Madhya Pradesh and now there is a Congress government in the state.
After the Supreme Court debunked all the allegations made by Rahul Gandhi about the Rafale deal, the Congress president addressed the media. And instead of tendering an apology for his lies as demanded by the government, he chose to brazenly stick to his lies.
He started the press conference by saying that the Rafale deal has been snatched from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and gave ₹30,000 to Anil Ambani’s Reliance. Rahul Gandhi repeated the lie that Narendra Modi stole ₹30,000 from people of India. Rahul Gandhi said that if an enquiry is conducted on the Rafale deal is done, only two persons will be found guilty, Narendra Modi and Anil Ambani.
Referring to the Supreme Court judgement on the petitions filed demanding a SIT enquiry into the Rafale deal, the Congress president alleged that the court misled people by saying CAG has gone into the prices of the Rafale aircraft, and the report of CAG has been presented to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in the parliament. He claimed that no such enquiry has been done by CAG, and no report was submitted to PAC. He wondered if Modi had submitted the report to PAC in France, joking maybe there is a PAC in PMO that nobody is aware of, to a huge laughter from the reporters present at the press conference.
It can be noted that there is absolutely no basis in allegations of Rahul Gandhi. India is directly buying the 36 Rafale jets from Dassault, which will be manufactured in France. HAL does licensed production of aircrafts that are made in India under licence from aircraft manufacturers. As all the 36 planes will be made in France, HAL does not come into the picture. Reliance and Dassault have formed a joint venture, which get a fraction of offset business that Dassault is obliged to do as per India’s defence purchase policy. Dassault’s investment in the JV is mere ₹400 crore, not ₹30,000 crore as claimed by Rahul Gandhi. In the Rafale deal the offset obligation is 50%, means total offset business will be around ₹30,000 crore, but that business will be divided among more than a hundred companies, many of them public sector units, and DRDO will be largest receiver of offset business.
These points have been clarified by the government of India several times in the past. In today’s judgement, the Supreme Court also reiterated the same points. But showing a complete disrespect to the Supreme Court of India, Congress president Rahul Gandhi repeated the same lies that he is making for the last several months. Moreover, after he completed his speech, he walked away from the venue, refusing to take any questions from the reporters. While at the beginning he said that prime minister does not talk to media, at the end he himself refused to take questions after ending his monologue.
The government works as a monolith, and unfortunately, several times, the various cogs and process behind delivering a said output is unknown. With respect to India’s meteoric rise in the Ease of Doing Business rankings, much has been said and the negative perception has manifested itself from several quarters. A friend of mine too called and asserted, rather vehemently that the entire exercise was ‘fixed’.
I was never much of a reader but my fascination with Amar Chitra Katha made me a great story listener and a dramatic storyteller. Amar Chitra Katha simplified the most complex stories in history – Mahabharata and Ramayana and made it simple enough even for toddlers to understand. If Mahabharata and Ramayana can be simplified, shouldn’t complex Government DPRs and public policies are made easy enough for the public to understand?
Intelligence is not about wordplay, vocabulary or complex philosophies. Intelligence is about taking the most complex ideas and communicating it to the lowest possible denominator. Consultants make their millions like that. Centralized communication is always a challenge.
While several other schemes and achievements, the process of which needs to be explained, in this article, the attempt is to simplify Governments’ complex ideas as far as Ease of Doing Business is concerned.
About Ease of Doing Business
The Ease of Doing Business project provides objective measures of business regulations, important dimensions of the regulatory environment and their enforcement across 190 economies and selected cities at the subnational and regional level. It provides quantitative indicators on different parameters which define the ease of doing business in a country. It also measures features of labour market regulations. Although it does not present rankings on the labour market regulation indicators, it does present the data for these indicators.
Approach and Methodology
World Bank ranks various countries on Ease of Doing Business Parameters using two techniques:
Scoring based on 11 indicators
Perception Survey feedback received from the beneficiaries.
Ease of Doing Business captures several important dimensions of the regulatory environment affecting domestic firms. It provides quantitative indicators on regulation for starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency highlighted in the table below. Ease of Doing Business also measures features of labour market regulation which are reported as a separate section and not included in the ranking.
Table of EODB indicators and what is measured
The next critical component is the perception survey wherein World Bank understands the actual implementation of reforms on the ground and its overall impact on the business regulatory environment of the country. The data is collected through several rounds of communication with expert respondents (both private sector practitioners and Government officials), through responses to questionnaires, conference calls, written correspondence and visits by the team. The entire process of feedback mechanism is reflected in the pictorial diagram below:
Process of feedback mechanism
The above diagram depicts the timeline of EODB report launch, beginning with Questionnaire development followed by Data Collection & Analysis and, Data verification, until the final step of publishing the report.
Ease of Doing Business: India’s Journey
In a major boost to the Government, India has jumped 23 spots in the new World Bank Ease of Doing Business (EODB) 2019 rankings to take up the 77th spot, with a score of 67.23. The report goes on to list India as one of the top 10 major reformers or ‘improvers’ among 190 countries, along with neighbours China. The top spots were occupied by New Zealand (86.59), Singapore (85.24), and Denmark (84.64).
The country’s performance in the last four years in terms of easing business regulations has been impressive: it managed to jump 65 spots during the period. Stakeholders, especially those from the muddled real estate sector, explained that it is now a lot easier to get construction and licensing permits, trading across borders and other Government approvals.
India, too, introduced many reforms such as the Goods and Services Tax to reduce the burden of cascading taxes, amendments to Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) for faster resolutions, easier licensing and trading norms.
These are some of the key reasons behind India’s jump from the 142nd spot in 2014 to 77 in the Ease of Doing Business 2019 rankings. While 2017’s 30-rank jump remains, the highest improvement recorded by India, this year’s jump has also been lauded by experts.
Citizens will be pleased to know that India is now among the top 8 South Asian countries in the list. India’s ranking improved based on the relaxation of norms in the construction sector, reduction of taxes, and relaxation in financial markets among other measures.
Ease of Doing Business: India Success Story
The diagram below depicts the timeline of India’s performance in EODB. Against initial target set of reaching top 50 in the World in EODB rankings, India jumped 30 ranks in 2017, followed by 23 ranks in 2018.
India’s success story
India’s performance in Ease of Doing Business Report
Diagram depicts India’s Year-On-Year ranking in EODB rankings.
As one can see, the diagram clearly indicates the plateau of ranking from 132 in 2011 under the Congress regime, to 130 in 2016 under the Modi government, followed by a sharp rise to 100th rank in 2017.
In 2018, India’s rank is 77th in the World.
Rise in EODB ranks since 2011
Highlights of Ease of Doing Business 2018
The EODB ranking has given India a considerable edge in 2018. India bagged several accolades like best performance since inception of doing business report, best improver in the world in terms of improvement in rank. India also became the only country in South Asia and BRICS to feature amongst most improved nations.
The following diagram highlights India’s key achievements in EODB rankings. Besides being the biggest improver and holding the record for highest jump in rank, India is the only country amongst South Asia and BRICS economies to feature in most improved nations.
Highlights of EODB
Highlights of Ease of Doing Business 2019
The following diagram of India’s performance in the last two years. India is now ranked 1st among South Asian countries, due to inching closer to international best practices on 8 indications.
Highlights of EODB
India’s performance over the last two years
India’s performance can be credited to positive changes in construction permits, trading across borders, paying taxes, resolving insolvency, enforcing contracts etc. There are several indicators in which India has improved remarkably well.
How India improved in some indicators
Major reforms recognized by World Bank
Under the Modi government, 20 reforms have occurred since 2014, 14 in the last two years and 6 in last year alone.
India’s reforms chart
Way Forward: India’s Quest to Come in Top 50
The Government now needs to keep the reform momentum going. In the area of taxation, indirect tax reform has to be taken to the next level by bringing in the excluded items, including petroleum products, in the GST ambit. On the direct tax side, a new Direct Taxes Code must ensure that the income tax burden on the companies comes down along with the simplification of the tax structure. We still have a huge scope for improvement in Contract enforcement and starting a new business arena – improvements in these will improve the ranking further.
The MSME industry needs more money to invest and easy credit availability. These also will play a critical role in improving the country’s rankings in ease of doing business. The move to take these ranking to State level and extending this to District level is a great initiative.
The Government is working with the World Bank to recognise over 200 reforms that will help propel India into the top-50 bracket in ease of doing business, according to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).
The Public Report on Terrorism Threat to Canada 2018 has described Sikh (Khalistani) Terrorism as a “concern”. This the first time under the Trudeau government that the Khalistani groups have been included in the report.
The report is published by Public Safety Canada, an agency created in 2003 to ensure coordination across all the departments and agencies responsible for national security.
The Ministerial Forward to the report says that the National Terrorism Threat Level which is a broad indicator of the terrorist threat to Canada has not changed since 2014 and remains at medium.
Despite attacks by Khalistani extremism being limited, the report considers it a matter of concern. “Furthermore, Shia and Sikh (Khalistani) extremism also remain of concern because while their attacks in Canada have been extremely limited, some Canadians continue to support these extremist groups, including through financing. At the time of publication, Canada’s National Terrorism Threat Level remains at medium, as set in early October 2014 – meaning a violent act of terrorism could occur”, reads the Executive Summary of the Report.
The report claims that, while violent activities in support of Khalistan have fallen since their peak during 1982-1993, support for the extreme ideologies remains. The 1985 Air India bombing by Khalistani terrorists, which killed 331 people, remains the deadliest terrorist plot ever launched in Canada as per the report.
The two Khalistani Groups that have been identified in the report as being associated with terrorism are Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) and International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF). The report describes BKI as a terrorist entity that aims to establish a fundamentalist independent Sikh state called ‘Khalistan’ (Land of the Pure) in what is presently the Indian state of Punjab. According to the report, the BKI is involved in armed attacks, assassinations and bombings and has members outside of India in Pakistan, North America, Europe and Scandinavia.
The ISYF is an international branch of the All India Sikh Students’ Federation (AISSF). The organisation also aims to promote Sikh philosophy and establish an independent Sikh nation of Khalistan. The report says that the organisation has been involved in terrorist attacks and bombings primarily against “Indian political figures”. ISYF, as claimed by the report, collaborates with a number of Sikh associations with a number of Sikh terrorist organisations including BKI.
While addressing around 600 serving and retired disabled soldiers from the Southern Command, the South Western Command and the Central Command in Pune on Thursday, the Indian Army Chief, Bipin Rawat warned personnel who feign illness or disability in order to avoid duty or get benefits saying that “Indian Army should not be looked upon as a job provider organisation”.
Alongside he also assured all possible help to the former and serving soldiers who have actually suffered disability in the line of duty.
While talking to the official and soldiers present there, Bipin Rawat said, “It is often seen that people feel the Army is a means of employment, a means to get a job. I want to warn you, remove this misconception from your minds. The Army is not a means of employment. If you want to join the Army, you have to show physical and mental toughness. You should have the ability to face difficulties,” he said.
“Many people, including youngsters, approach me with a request to give them jobs in the Army. I tell them that the Indian Army is not a means of employment. If you want jobs, then go to the Railways, or start your own business,” General Rawat said.
Rawat went on to further clarify that soldiers and officers who feign disability will face action. He warned that such officials would receive unpleasant instructions from the Army Headquarters in the coming days.
The Army Chief, agitated with the section of soldiers and officers who falsely call themselves disabled on the ground, furthered “These people are physically and mentally weak and can’t withstand stress. They should feel ashamed after seeing these men who are actually disabled but have given an exemplary performance,” he said. Rawat was referring to the wheelchair-bound soldiers who performed during the event.
He went on to reiterate that the Army understands that the soldiers and officers work in adverse conditions and face extreme medical difficulties, and for that, he assured all possible assistance. “Indian Army is committed to providing help to you. If you have any problem, kindly write to your unit and if you do not get help, please send a message on the dedicated number issued by the Army and I assure you that you will get an answer within a month,” he said.
Announcing that the Indian Army had declared the year 2018 as the “Year of the Disabled Soldiers in the line of Duty”, Rawat added that the Army is collating data on soldiers and officers who actually suffered disability in the line of duty and a dedicated team of officers will be approaching such officers soon, to provide all possible help to them.
This week has been a roller coaster ride, from high profile extradition cases, the resignation of the RBI governor and the results of recent assembly elections. While there has been a lot of focus on the recent assembly elections, the recent appointment of the RBI governor has also got its fair share of coverage. The important thing to note here is that there has been a well-established precedent to appoint a bureaucrat as the RBI’s governor. Thus, the government has only reverted back to what was a normal convention in the past.
Another reason why it is important to understand why a Bureaucrat as the Governor is a well thought out choice is that the key veto power over monetary policy no longer resides with the RBI Governor. Now India has a new Monetary Policy Framework under which there is a Monetary Policy Committee (Of which, of course, the RBI Governor is a member) that determines the Monetary Policy for the country. It is this committee where expert monetarists are required to provide their expertise in terms of taking decisions regarding interest rates or reserve ratios.
That being said, it is well acknowledged that India has one of the tightest of monetary policies and that too at a time where inflation seems to be significantly lower than even RBI’s estimates. Their recent stance of calibrated tightening came as a surprise given that inflation has been low while the economy has consistently been seeking some liquidity to facilitate further growth. The real interest rates in India have been at an all-time high and this has come with India just being at the revamp of its positive investment cycle. Thus, the over-exaggerated fears of inflation have started to impact the growth prospects of the economy in the short term and perhaps this is why there’s a need to review the current monetary policy seriously.
It must be mentioned though that in India inflation is largely driven by food prices and crude prices both of which are not determined by the monetary policy. Food prices are partly driven by the Central Government’s MSP decision and partly by the forces of the market while Crude Oil prices are of course determined in the international market. Thus, the efficacy of the monetary policy on inflation for an emerging market economy like India needs to be subject to academic review. Yes, monetary policy does impact inflation, but the question is till what extent and beyond that, the question is, at what cost to growth does it impact inflation?
It is not that the real interest rates have been the only issue as there has been a recent fall in the growth of priority sector lending and following the IL&FS crisis, it is a well-known fact that the Non-Banking Financial Sector is facing stiff liquidity issues. It is these challenges that had caused a disagreement between the previous RBI Governor and the Central Government as both had their own ways to resolve the current situation.
Given that we’re currently in the low inflation phase, perhaps the change in guard is a blessing as we can take a look at some of the other areas where the RBI needs to work going forward, and a major area would be in terms of its capacity building and getting their inflation forecasts more in line with what the actual inflation figures are. Without sound forecasting, it is difficult to take calibrated policy outcomes. Another important thing that’s required is to improve the efficacy of the regulatory role of the RBI given the recent lapses that have occurred with the Punjab National Bank frauds.
On the NPA resolution front, the RBI has got a friendly North Block which has already passed the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code that is estimated to resolve up to 45% of NPAs by the end of 2018 while by 2019 a major chunk of the NPAs would be resolved with minimum haircuts for the banks.
While others have focused on the master’s in history that the current RBI governor has, they’ve ignored the sound expertise in administration and policy outcomes that he has developed as an IAS officer. It is these skills and administrative experience that will be of enormous help as he steers the RBI through troubled waters. His courses in Financial Management from IIM Bangalore and series of diplomas in institutional credit will come in handy but more importantly, his experience at the Finance Ministry, first as a Secretary of Economic Affairs, Department of Expenditure and Revenue Secretary will come in handy as he heads India’s Central Bank.
While the task in front of him is challenging, he’s already started his work by addressing one issue at a time so while the critics may still question his appointment, it is his legacy that will provide the final answer to all those who questioned this decision. The man who steered the economy through Demonetization has been put in charge of the RBI; with his impeccable credentials and extensive experience, I am certain he’d only increase the stature of this great institution.
The security personnel of the University of Ghana in Legon, Accra, on December 12, were seen demolishing the statue of Mahatma Gandhi, which was erected at the recreational quadrangle of the university after it was donated to the University by the former Indian President, Pranab Mukherjee, in 2016.
A University of Ghana official is reported to have told Radio Univers that “We received an order from above and we can’t tell you why it is being taken down’.
Meanwhile, in Malawi, it was reported on November 30, that the High court in Blantyre, was expected to pass its judgment within 30 days, regarding whether or not the Gandhi Statue which came with an aid of US $20 million from the Indian Government should be allowed installation. The erection process was halted after #Gandhimustfall movement gained momentum in 2016.
The erection and unveiling of the statue in the Ghana university campus had created a controversy among the lecturers and students of the university way back in 2016 when a section of them opposed the construction citing passages written by Gandhi which claimed Indians were “infinitely superior” to black Africans. They were of the opinion that the statue should be pulled down on the grounds that Gandhi was a ‘racist’.
An online petition was also launched in 2016 against the casted Mahatma Gandhi’s statue which garnered over 2000 signatures of students who stood by the opinion that the statue should be pulled down.
A campaign with hashtag #Gandhimustfall trended on social media in Ghana and in South Africa simultaneously in 2016, following the unveiling of the Statue by the then Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Ernest Aryeetey and the then Indian President.
Subsequently, the Government of Ghana had in October 2016, announced to relocate the statue of Mahatma Gandhi from the campus, following protests and the incident of defacing of the statue.
A former Director of the Institute of African Studies, Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo, started the campaign for the removal of the statue. Ampofo together with another professor at the Institute, Dr. Obadéle Kambon, urged members of the council to consider the petition arguing that, Gandhi was racist against black people and honouring him would set the wrong example for students.
Now in the wake of this ongoing controversy, it has been reported that the Mahatma Gandhi statue erected at the recreational quadrangle of the University of Ghana which had been facing the wrath of Africans since its conception, has been demolished.
After the government of India’s stand on the Rafale deal was vindicated by the Supreme Court of India which dismissed all petitions against the deal, finance minister Arun Jaitley addressed the media on the issue. Attacking the critics of the deal, he said that Falsehood has a very short life. And in this case of allegations against the Rafale deal, its life was just a few months. He also said that “falsehood lowers the credibility of its creator”.
Arun Jaitley noted that the Rafale deal is being attacked not only by politicians, but also by people with ‘conflict of interest’. He said that Some people with ‘conflict of interest’ were also commenting on the Rafale deal, hinting that there may be more than just political motives in making allegations against the deal.
Mentioning that the process to buy fighter jets was started by UPA government but it was never concluded, the finance minister said that somebody has to answer why the deal was virtually abandoned during the Congress government tenure in 2012. He said that fiction was created to attack the deal, which amounted to compromise on national security. He asked, “the entire imaginary thought process, was that a fiction writing to compromise national security?”
The finance minister said that the government made sure that both national security and commercial security of India are protected in the deal. He also said that the allegation of NDA government buying the Rafale jet for ₹1600 crore versus ₹500 crore fixed during the UPA government has no basis, and it is just a work of fiction. He said that those who manufactured these falsehoods have hurt the national interests.
After that all the allegations against the government in the Rafale deal has been proven as false by the supreme court, Arun Jaitley asked for a public apology from those who made the allegations. He said that in democracies there’s a convention that if public figures spread falsehoods, they must resign. In many countries, Presidents have faced impeachment when caught lying or people have resigned from their posts if proved they lied. He called for an apology from Rahul Gandhi in the parliament.
When asked about why different percentages of discount earned in the Rafale deal is being circulated, the finance minister said that all of them are correct, in different contexts. He said that for the price of bare aircraft without any weapon, the discount is 9%. But when the price of fully weaponised aircraft is taken, the discount is 20%.
He said that “all the figures by the govt are correct and all the figures by Mr Rahul Gandhi are false and I have justified it. The truth has only one version and falsehood has many. That is why Mr Rahul Gandhi quoted several figures”.
When asked about the demand for a JPC probe on the deal, Jaitley said, “We can’t rely on Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) because people are divided on party lines. So, in such cases, we have to rely on judicial processes”.
Implying that no amount of clarification will satisfy Rahul Gandhi, Arun Jaitley said “deaf will never get an answer, they will never hear it”.
Answering the question on basis for purchasing 36 aircraft instead of 126 as per the original deal, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that as the original deal was cancelled due to differences over manufacture of the fighter in India, government decided to purchase two squadrons of Rafale jet, instead of one squadron as per the original deal. It was done as an urgent measure as IAF desperately needs new fighter jets. The minister clarified that 36 is not just a random number, it amounts to two squadrons of fighter jets.
