Thursday, May 23, 2024
Decoding how PM Modi hacks EVMs, Part 4: How his govt improved lives of women – rural and urban – at home, school and work
The following article was written for OpIndia. Pasting it here for reference:
Many big economies globally have maternity leave policy of a minimum of 3 months only. So, when my colleagues and friends in global organisations come to know that India has a mandatory 6-month maternity leave policy, they are still pleasantly surprised. As important as this reform is for women in the organised sector (bought of course by the Modi government), there was another scheme by the Modi government that caught my attention – the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana.
The unorganised sector, such as agriculture, for example, has lakhs of women in rural and urban India where they have to work right up to the last days of pregnancy and resume working very soon after childbirth. They typically don’t have the luxury of a 6-month paid leave. The nature of the work also takes a toll both on their health and that of the baby.
Through the Matru Vandana Yojana, the Modi government started a direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme under which “cash benefits are provided to pregnant women in their bank account directly to meet enhanced nutritional needs and partially compensate for wage loss”. Coupled with the POSHAN Abhiyaan (that emphasises the nutritional status of adolescent girls, pregnant women, lactating mothers, and children from 0-6 years of age), a holistic support system has been developed for pregnant women & lactating mothers, in the unorganised sector!
While nutrition efforts were done earlier too, the direct cash transfer to also compensate for wage loss will bring in mental peace that cannot be quantified. Efforts such as these have improved the Maternal Mortality Rate from 132 per 1 lakh births to 97 per 1 lakh births. Now, you just have to ask yourselves why these women wouldn’t press the lotus button on the EVM
While we are on the topic of pregnancy, the upper limit for termination of pregnancy has been increased from 20 weeks to 24 weeks. This is important because certain abnormalities can only be detected after 20 weeks, and therefore gives a medical option to terminate if necessary. While we continue on the topic of pregnancy, did you know that India did not have any law governing Surrogacy? Modi government is the first government to enact a law that lays down rules for both Surrogacy and Assisted Reproduction. This may not fetch votes yet but lawmaking is the first step to help prevent the exploitation of women (especially for Surrogacy).
In the unorganised sector, the participation of women in the workforce is much higher than in the organised sector. Women constitute nearly 57% of the popular MNREGA program (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). An International Labour Organisation study has pointed out how India improved the gender pay gap in MNREGA itself, over the last 8 years. We have already discussed how the Modi government revolutionised MNREGA with excellent high funding. So, in summary, more women participate in MNREGA; they earn more money now than before; they earn equivalent to men unlike how it was before. Now, you just have to ask yourselves why these women wouldn’t press the lotus button on the EVM!
In the unorganised sector, the participation of women in entrepreneurial ventures is also higher than in the organised sector. Nearly 10 crore rural women are part of nearly 1 crore Self Help Groups. However, with Prime Minister Modi, it’s never about maintaining the status quo. From the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15, 2023, he has announced the aim of creating 2 crore lakhpati didis from these groups. While announcing these, the Prime Minister has also spoken about skilling them even in the latest technologies such as drone repairing, and LED bulb making so that they aren’t far off from technology. The concept of the scheme is simple – make these women lakhpatis!
An endearing conversation with one such lakhpati didi gives a great glimpse of why these women feel so comfortable talking to the Prime Minister of India. The rural women have bought into the concept of thinking big and achieving big, and are now fully in tandem with the Prime Minister’s vision. Another conversation with women diary entrepreneurs of Varanasi is another proof of how big a hit he is. Now, you have to ask yourselves why these women wouldn’t press the lotus button on the EVM!
With so much money coming in, where would the women keep all this money? Gone are the days of hiding money at home, away from the prying eyes of others. The amazing success of the Jan Dhan Scheme means that all these women have their own bank accounts (Out of the total 51.80 crore accounts, 28.75 crore accounts are owned by women!) and therefore access to their own money in the safest manner possible.
Rural women are also now able to spend more time working (either as entrepreneurs or employees) because they now have to spend less time worrying about one basic necessity in their house – drinking water. We all have read about and also seen how women have to endure scorching conditions and walk long distances to get drinking water for their home, or we have witnessed the fights that break out at the water tanker that comes to your village. The Jal Jeevan Mission (the slogan is catchy – Har Ghar Nal se Jal) now ensures every house must have a tap and 55 litres of water supply every day. Nearly 12 crore households out of eligible 19 crore households have already been provided this connection. Now, you just have to ask why these women wouldn’t press the lotus button on the EVM!
Speaking of their homes; Swach Bharat has ensured toilets have been built, thus making it safer for women in rural areas; electricity availability is not a problem; electricity bills are also reduced through LED bulbs in the Ujala Scheme; cooking is through gas cylinders and not through inhaling dangerous smoke from wood (10 crore connections so far, through Ujjwala Scheme!) – I mean, I can go on and on, but do you see how holistic the focus on improving the lives of women, at home and at work, has been?
Through Beti Bachao, Beti Padao, our sex ratio at birth has improved from 918 in 2014-2015 to 933 in 2022 (meaning more girl children are born now or lesser girl children are being aborted now, as compared to before). Not only are more girl children studying now, but even the last barriers to their education have now been removed (Did you know that Sainik Schools didn’t allow admissions to girls? That rule was removed in 2021 by the Modi government).
The legal age for girls to get married was 18. It has now been changed to 21, on par with men. Can you imagine the possibilities this opens up for the girls to pursue education and careers of their choice? Where will they get the money, you ask? The answer lies in the Sukanya Samriddhi Scheme – a parent opens an account for the girl child and can deposit up to 1.5 lakhs every year until she is 21 years of age. The account gets ~8% interest every year; the girl can withdraw 50% of the amount when she reaches 18, for higher education purposes. After she reaches 21, the entire money is hers. And already 3 crore accounts are opened and have deposited 1,62,000 crores of money into this scheme! And then there are the small things that matter big – for example, including victims of Acid attacks into the divyang category so that they get benefits meted out to the physically handicapped.
Not too long ago, we used to discuss the multi-fold problems that girls and women face in our country. There is perhaps no other government that has had such a holistic approach to improving the lives of women – at home, at school, and at work. And with the passing of the Women’s Reservation Bill in Parliament, we will now have 33% of women participation in law-making too. Now, ask yourselves again why crores of women wouldn’t press the lotus button on the EVM!
This is the 4th article in the series Decoding How PM Modi hacks EVMs (an allegation the opposition often throws at him). Part-1 speaks about the focus on small-scale entrepreneurs; Part-2 speaks about the revolutions in the labour/employment sector; Part-3 speaks about the focus on both prevention and cure in health.
Shameless whitewashing of Sheikh Shahjahan and the plight of Sandeshkhali women by The Hindu: How they chose to protect Mamata Banerjee
The following article was written for OpIndia. Pasting it here for reference:
Every Saturday, the English newspaper The Hindu publishes a full-page story titled “Ground Zero”. On February 24th, 2024, they decided to finally honor us with their version of the horrors of Sandeshkhali, in West Bengal.
The headline is not the only thing that will throw you off. But let’s quickly discuss the disgusting nature of the headline. In the English language, Fire and smoke are terms often used to justify page-3-type gossip and political rumors. Not to justify serious criminal complaints of rape, gang rape, violence and harassment. The dreaded editors of The Hindu have no qualms though in resorting to such cheap headlines. Like I said at the beginning of this paragraph, the headline is not the only thing that will throw you off.
At the center of all the serious criminal complaints of rape, gang rape, violence, and harassment is the dreaded criminal Sheikh Shahjahan. According to The Hindu, who is Sheikh Shahjahan? Let’s take a look at the image below (which is a snippet from the article).
When do you use phrases such as “humble beginnings” and “rose to prominence”? These are phrases that have a positive connotation and are used when describing inspiring stories of heroes in our society. However, in our country, we have these brain-dead editors in the English media who possess this petulant penchant for romanticizing the lives of dreaded criminals and terrorists. After everything that we have heard about this hard-core criminal, can you imagine that The Hindu actually wants us to be in awe of how Sheikh Shahjahan “rose to political prominence”. Shahjahan is so awesome that “Mamata Banerjee had once described him as “popular”.
Snippet from the article by The Hindu on SandeshkhaliIt took an ED raid for the world to unearth the dreaded empire of this criminal, Shahjahan. “Little known” Shahjahan was so awesome that when ED raided him, bringing him into the limelight, he ensured that his mob attacked and injured the officers. And the brave man that he is, he ran away!
You may argue that The Hindu has graciously given space to a full page for this story and I am nitpicking on a small paragraph. I will make it a little easier for you to understand how The Hindu story is structured. If it was not for social media (especially OpIndia), I would have easily thought that this whole ruckus about Shahjahan is just about land grabbing from poor people. Because everything that I have marked in the pink shade in the article (image below) talks about land grabbing “allegations” by villagers against Shahjahan.
The elaborate introductory paragraphs describe how a woman bravely recorded her statement before the magistrate, and only towards the end of this section (the small patch of red I highlighted), we are told as a matter of fact that the allegations were about how she was raped, 5 months ago.
Everything that I have marked in the red shade is actually instances when the article refers to the multiple horror stories of rape that the women of Sandeshkhali have poured out. You can easily notice how The Hindu has taken elaborate pains to make this issue more about land grabbing and less about rape and violence.
After elaborately explaining to us the land grabbing and violent stories that the villagers are “alleging”, The Hindu begins a section titled “The political flashpoint” (the 2nd patch of the red box I highlighted in the above image)
We were told that the “floodgates opened” only after “a woman from Sandeshkhali told…”. Please notice the absence of any adjectives to describe the bravery of this woman and every woman who spoke after this. The section very quickly transitions to how the police have dutifully informed the press that no rape complaints were ever filed before February 15th and hence they didn’t know about this. And then how various political leaders are trying to make a beeline to this area.
And then the article amazingly moves back to the stories of land grabbing and arrests. You would think many culprits have been arrested, but according to this story – more than 10 BJP workers, 1 television journalist (The Hindu doesn’t even want to say Republic TV!), and a former MLA come CPI have been arrested, in addition to just 2 Trinamool leaders. The article ends with how the woman who recorded her statement before the magistrate continues to live in fear.
It’s not as if they can’t use better adjectives or writing skills to accurately describe the pain and the courage that is currently on display by the residents of Sandeshkhali. It’s just that they chose to save the incumbent TMC government from any bad imaging. It’s just that the editors chose to tell the world that they have no conscience.
The Uncanny TDP-JSP-BJP is back in Andhra. But Which Way Will the Cookie Crumble?
The following article was written for MyInd Makers. Pasting it here for reference:
After a lot of discussions and news leaks, the BJP-TDP-Jana Sena alliance in Andhra Pradesh was finally formally announced on March 9th, 2024. This was perhaps one of the coldest announcements of an alliance, in recent times! Chandrababu Naidu and Pawan Kalyan were in Delhi for 3 days, had just two meetings with J.P. Nadda and Amit Shah and then all three parties released press statements praising each other. A huge public meeting is scheduled for March 17th.
Both the Jana Sena Party (JSP) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) campaigned hard against Modi in the 2019 elections. In fact, the JSP is one of the first parties to have falsely highlighted The Wire’s filthy report on the North-South divide back in 2017. The abuses that the TDP leadership and cadre heaped on Modi are still too fresh in the memory of many people. Chandrababu Naidu even used the Assembly sessions to heap his abuses on Modi.
After the 2019 debacle in AP for both the TDP and JSP, JSP was the first party to come back to the NDA fold. Pawan Kalyan realised his folly of going alone in the 2019 elections, with no agenda. He himself lost the election from 2 seats. As time progressed, Pawan Kalyan became more aggressive in his speeches against the Jagan Mohan Reddy government. Pawan Kalyan was the first one to propose that the only way to beat Jagan Mohan Reddy in 2024 is to not allow a split in the opposition vote. He recently explained to his cadre how difficult it was for him to convince the BJP to take TDP back into the NDA fold.
Chandrababu Naidu faced his worst ever defeat in 2019. Jagan Mohan Reddy announced a sudden plan to build three capitals instead of one. Chandrababu’s media suddenly changed track and started publishing articles that the capital Amaravati is in fact ready and nothing else needs to be built. Before the 2019 elections, this same media was constantly attacking Modi that he gave nothing to the capital. I think this was the turning point for the TDP also to make amends for their mistakes from 2019. Chandrababu Naidu started making attempts to warm up to the BJP again. The desperate attempts were also a result of the cadre’s unrest that has been out of power (both at the state and the centre). It was finally Chandrababu’s arrest by Jagan Mohan Reddy that started turning the tide in favour of the TDP.
The 52-day arrest created sympathy towards Chandrababu Naidu, perhaps even more than the assassination attempt on him by the Naxals created back in 2003. It was during this period that Pawan Kalyan announced that he will ally with TDP for the 2024 elections and will try to convince the BJP too. He finally succeeded!
Out of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in AP, the BJP will contest in 6, the JSP in 2 and the TDP in 17. The BJP has compromised on the MLA seats (will contest only 10 out of the 175). Pawan Kalyan had a very tough time convincing his cadre that the 24 seats he got as part of the alliance (down to 21 now) are justified for the strength he has. Chandrababu Naidu is also continuously stressing in his public meetings how the vote transfer between JSP and TDP must happen at the booth level, otherwise all efforts will be futile. There is still some doubt left in the minds of both Chandrababu and Pawan Kalyan that the cadre may not resort to vote transfer.
There is a definite anger against the Jagan Mohan Reddy government, especially amongst the youth. This is also evident from the fact that Jagan lost the MLC elections for the graduate constituency. But there is also significant support for Jagan from the women beneficiaries of his welfare programs. Recently, Jagan released a full page ad giving details of what his government has done exclusively for Chandrababu’s constituency, Kuppam. The veracity of the statistic aside, there is a very interesting aspect of that ad. Jagan tells us that his government gave 1400 crores through DBT, and 489 crores through non-DBT. 489 crores in non-DBT just for one constituency. Can you imagine the scale of money distributed throughout the state, in these 5 years in the non-DBT mode? Can you predict what impact it will have on the elections in 2024? The story of the 2024 elections will perhaps lie in this non-DBT transfer.
English and Hindi TV channels have been publishing surveys recently. Two of the surveys indicate that despite all this consolidation, the YSRCP will romp home with 22 out of the 25 seats. Two surveys though indicated that the TDP+ will win about 10 out of the 25 seats. With the alliance now formalised, time will tell how these numbers will change.
