Posts tagged ‘Bharatiya Janata Party’

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07/12/2014

India Raises $278 Million From Sale of Stake in Steel Authority – Businessweek

India said the sale of a stake in state-run Steel Authority of India Ltd. will fetch $278 million, the first step in a push for $9.5 billion from share sales to help narrow the nation’s budget deficit to a seven-year low.

The disposal of a 5 percent holding in Steel Authority of India is set to generate about 17.15 billion rupees ($278 million) and the offer was more than two times oversubscribed, the Finance Ministry said in a statement today.

“This will give a lot of confidence to the government to come out with disinvestment in other companies,” said R. K. Gupta, managing director at New Delhi-based Taurus Asset Management Co., which oversees $710 million.

via India Raises $278 Million From Sale of Stake in Steel Authority – Businessweek.

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04/12/2014

Modi seeks to draw line under row over minister’s pro-Hindu comments | Reuters

Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought on Thursday to draw a line under a row sparked by a ministerial colleague’s derogatory comments about non-Hindus, urging angry parliament deputies to accept her apology and move on.

A supporter of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) holds a placard with a picture of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he attends a rally addressed by the party president Amit Shah (not pictured) in Kolkata November 30, 2014. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri

The opposition, led by the Congress, has demanded the dismissal of Niranjan Jyoti, the junior minister for food processing industries, for telling voters this week that they must “decide whether you want a government of those born of (Hindu god) Ram, or those born illegitimately”.

The saffron-clad minister apologised a day later after her remarks drew outrage and calls that she be prosecuted for violating the secular spirit of India’s constitution.

Critics say that Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has a deep-seated bias against Muslims and that it is pursuing Hindu-dominant agenda.

Modi urged the upper house of parliament to accept Jyoti’s apology amid a third straight day of protests.

via Modi seeks to draw line under row over minister’s pro-Hindu comments | Reuters.

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03/12/2014

A New Look for Indian Railways – India Real Time – WSJ

Indian Railways is trying to get a makeover.

“We want to improve passenger amenities,” said Suresh Prabhu, India’s new minister for railways, via a video conference at an event organized by the Asia Society in Mumbai Wednesday.

India’s nationalized rail network carries around 30 million passengers a day and has a budget for 2014/15 of 654 billion rupees ($10 billion.)

So what will the new railways look like? Mr. Prabhu gave some clues Wednesday.

Better food: Train travelers have long grumbled about the quality of food served on Indian trains including watery dal (lentil soup) and thick rotis (Indian bread.)

Mr. Prabhu said he’s considering a plan to set up base kitchens that will make good quality food to supply trains.

He’s also exploring an option to tie up with restaurants along train routes, so that commuters can order food from those restaurants, and the food would be delivered onto the train by Railway staff.

Some private websites have lately started  offering this facility on their own, such as travelkhana.com,  yatrachef.com and railtiffin.com.

Mobile ticket booking: The Indian Railways’ website irctc.co.in, which allows travelers to book tickets online, is one of the most-frequently visited websites in India.

Now, Indian Railways wants to introduce an option for travelers to be able to book train tickets on their cellphones. Mr. Prabhu didn’t clarify if he was referring to a new app for this booking.

He said Wednesday that a technical glitch has delayed the launch, but passengers can expect it soon.

Cleanliness: The Railways are looking to improve the quality of toilets and waiting spaces at train stations, said Mr. Prabhu. “We also want to improve the coaches,” he said. The plan is to retrofit existing train coaches and set up a factory for making new coaches, he added.

“In the next few months we should be able to put in place a complete blueprint” to achieve these goals without denting the rail finances, said Mr. Prabhu.

via A New Look for Indian Railways – India Real Time – WSJ.

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20/11/2014

Cheap Electricity for Poor Squeezing Out Solar in India – Businessweek

The villagers of Dharnai in northern India had been living without electricity for more than 30 years when Greenpeace installed a microgrid to supply reliable, low-cost solar power.

Cooking By Candlelight

Then, within weeks of the lights flickering on in Dharnai’s mud huts, the government utility hooked up the grid — flooding the community with cheap power that undercut the fledgling solar network. While Greenpeace had come to Dharnai at Bihar’s invitation, the unannounced arrival of the state’s utility threatened to put it out of business.

“We wanted to set this up as a business model,” said Abhishek Pratap, a Greenpeace campaigner overseeing the project. “Now we’re in course correction.”

It’s a scenario playing out at dozens of ventures across India’s hinterlands. Competition from state utilities, with their erratic yet unbeatably cheap subsidized power, is scuppering efforts to supply clean, modern energy in a country where more people die from inhaling soot produced by indoor fires than from smoking.

About as many people in India are without electricity as there are residents of the U.S., and the number is growing by a Mumbai every year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to bring electricity to every home by 2019 by leapfrogging the nation’s ailing power-distribution infrastructure with solar-powered local networks — the same way mobile-phones have enabled people in poor, remote places to bypass landlines.

via Cheap Electricity for Poor Squeezing Out Solar in India – Businessweek.

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10/11/2014

Who’s Who in Narendra Modi’s New Cabinet in India – India Real Time – WSJ

In his first Cabinet reshuffle late Sunday, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi expanded the number of ministers in his government from 44 to 65.

That takes him just six shy of his predecessor Manmohan Singh’s coterie before his Congress party was ousted in national elections earlier this year by Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party that campaigned with a mantra for “minimum government, maximum governance.”

The enlargement nudges up the number of women ministers to eight from seven and gives key posts to members of parliament from states that are due for local elections in the coming months.

Here are the main moves, promotions, demotions and new arrivals in the modified Cabinet.

Major Cabinet Minister Moves

Suresh Prabhu becomes railway minister replacing Sadananda Gowda. Mr. Prabhu, 61, a former member of the Shiv Sena party, resigned from the regional party to join the Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday. A chartered accountant by profession and also a law graduate, Mr. Prabhu served as a cabinet minister in the previous BJP-led National Democratic Alliance for six years, handling key portfolios such as power, heavy industries and public enterprises and environment and forests among others. Mr. Prabhu has often been described by many as that “un-common whiff of much needed fresh air on the horizon of Indian public life,” according to his official website.

Manohar G. Parrikar is the new defense minister. Mr. Parrikar quit as Goa’s Chief Minister last week and takes charge of the defense ministry from Arun Jaitley.

A technocrat-turned-politician, Mr. Parrikar joined the BJP in 1988 and went on to become the chief minister of Goa for the first time in 2000. During his time as chief minister, he was credited with improving the western state’s infrastructure  overseeing the construction of major bridges, building bus stands and improving the road network across the state. “Known to be a man of action and principles, Mr. Parrikar is known as Mr. Clean in Goa,” his website said. As the new defense minister, Mr. Parrikar faces the daunting task of closing the country’s pending defense deals.

Arun Jaitley was relieved of the defense portfolio but was given an additional charge of information and broadcasting ministry previously held by Prakash Javadekar. Mr. Jaitley also continues as the head of the finance and corporate affairs ministries. A lawyer by profession, the BJP leader is known to be media-savvy.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan was deprived of his health and family welfare ministry in the shuffle and shifted to a low-key science and technology, Earth sciences ministry. Dr. Vardhan ran for the post of Delhi chief minister in elections in December but was beaten to the position by Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal who stepped down only a few weeks in to the job.

Prime Minister Modi remains in charge of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, the Department of Atomic Energy Department of Space; all important policy issues and all other portfolios not allocated to any minister, according to the press information bureau.

more on Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State …

via Who’s Who in Narendra Modi’s New Cabinet in India – India Real Time – WSJ.

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05/11/2014

How Modi Has Moved Into Kejriwal’s Space – India Real Time – WSJ

The capital of the world’s largest democracy, which has been under president’s rule for the best part of a year, is set for a fresh election.

There’s no firm date yet for the high-stakes Delhi polls, but for one man the stakes are higher than for most.

Arvind Kejriwal, former chief minister and anti-corruption activist, has what some analysts describe as one last chance to unite his fractious, young party and revive his own flagging political fortunes.

Mr. Kejriwal’s Aam Admi Party, which stormed Delhi’s political scene last year with its anti-graft slogans and innovative grass-roots campaign, has struggled to remain relevant since national elections in May, in which it won just four out of 543 parliamentary seats.

In part, analysts suggest, this is because his common man calling card and campaign for a corruption-free India have been appropriated by the leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leaving the AAP headman little space to distinguish himself.

Despite their wide economic and ideological differences, Mr. Modi does appear to have encroached on Mr. Kejriwal’s political ground in recent months.

Let’s look at the evidence.

First, the broom. Mr. Kejriwal’s party made the tool of India’s army of sweepers a weapon in his political arsenal.  As AAP’s symbol, the broom was a visual metaphor of the party’s aim to clean up politics in India.

Mr. Modi has taken the metaphor and made it literal. With a broom in hand last month, he promised to literally clean up India. Everyone from Bollywood stars to opposition politicians has taken up brooms to join him in the sanitation program.

via How Modi Has Moved Into Kejriwal’s Space – India Real Time – WSJ.

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28/10/2014

Banyan: The enablers | The Economist

NOT since Indira Gandhi has a prime minister of India been as dominant as Narendra Modi. His clout comes from the big electoral victory in May of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after a remarkably personalised campaign; from a hyperactive prime minister’s office that makes Mr Modi look presidential; and from an opposition Congress party in tatters. But even the mightiest cannot rule alone, and Mr Modi relies on two old allies, both crucial. One, Amit Shah, engineers the electoral victories that give Mr Modi his authority. The other, Arun Jaitley, must take that authority and out of it craft policies and decisions that will launch the economic recovery which Mr Modi has promised and by which he will be judged. These two men are Mr Modi’s enablers.

Now the BJP’s president, Mr Shah is a master of the dark political arts—indeed, his hooded eyes give him the air of a pantomime villain. He has served Mr Modi for nearly three decades. The pair collaborated in the state of Gujarat, where Mr Modi won three elections and ruled for a dozen years. Mr Shah had charge of ten state ministries, including home affairs.

Long an outsider in the urbane circles of Delhi’s national-level politics, Mr Shah is uncomfortable in English and rarely gives interviews. When he makes an exception, as he did after state-assembly elections this month in which the BJP seized control of Maharashtra and Haryana, he mostly uses the time to extol his boss. Of himself, he says merely: “Sometimes you get more credit than you deserve.” Mr Shah is too modest. He ran both state campaigns, just as he crafted the BJP general-election success in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh (UP). That victory was at the heart of Mr Modi’s national triumph in May.

Mr Modi stirs voters, but the alchemy of Mr Shah, who turned 50 this week, is to convert popularity into power. In UP the BJP’s share of the vote was 42%, compared with Congress’s 7.5%. That translated into 71 out of 80 of the national seats from the vast state, a golden return. Imbalances between vote share and seats are normal in first-past-the-post electoral systems, but achieving victory in India takes more skill and stamina than elsewhere. Mr Shah makes minute analyses of millions-strong constituencies, imposing candidates and recruiting volunteers early, often from the Hindu-nationalist RSS organisation, where he and Mr Modi were once leaders. He tailors messages according to the audience. He has, variously, presented Mr Modi as a bringer of good economic times, a Hindu strongman and a figure of humble caste. Mr Shah has turned Hindus against Muslims (notoriously, he told Hindu Jats in UP to take electoral “revenge” following communal riots in late 2013). But he has also taken advantage of Shia Muslim antipathy towards Sunnis (in Lucknow, UP’s capital). Mr Modi’s campaigning certainly helps. He led 38 rallies in the recent state elections. Congress’s Rahul Gandhi showed up for only ten.

via Banyan: The enablers | The Economist.

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19/10/2014

Jayaram Jayalalithaa Granted Bail – India Real Time – WSJ

India’s Supreme Court Friday granted bail to Jayaram Jayalalithaa, the influential leader of one of India’s biggest regional parties, as she appeals her conviction nearly three weeks after she was sentenced to four years in jail for corruption.

In September, a court in Bangalore found Ms. Jayalalithaa and three of her aides guilty of having accumulated wealth beyond their known sources of income.

On Friday, the Supreme Court granted her “conditional bail on grounds that she is unwell and needs to rest at home,” her party’s spokesman Aspire K. Swaminathan told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.

After a case that lasted close to two decades, Ms. Jayalalithaa had to step down immediately from her position as chief minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu after the September verdict. Her party – the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam– quickly named O. Paneerselvam as her successor as chief minister, she remains the leader of the party and has been in jail in Bangalore since Sept. 27.

Ms. Jayalalithaa denied wrongdoing and appealed for bail in the Karnataka High Court earlier this month on health grounds. But the court rejected her bail plea saying there was no reason to suspend her conviction.

Subramanian Swamy, a petitioner in the case against Ms. Jayalalithaa and a leader in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party said the top court has asked Ms. Jayalalithaa to submit her appeal within two months in the Karnataka High Court, “failing which her bail would be cancelled.”

via Jayaram Jayalalithaa Granted Bail – India Real Time – WSJ.

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16/09/2014

BJP Fares Poorly in By-Elections in India’s Most-Populous State – India Real Time – WSJ

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s landslide victory in national elections a few months ago spawned predictions of an unstoppable political juggernaut. But results of by-elections show cracks in the BJP’s dominance.

India’s governing party held onto only three of 11 seats that went to the polls for the legislative assembly of Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most-populous state. The BJP had won all these seats in the last state elections in 2012.

The regional Samajwadi Party, which governs the state but suffered a big blow in national elections, won the remaining eight seats, according to India’s Election Commission.

Just four months ago, the BJP won a historic 72 of 80 seats for the national Parliament from Uttar Pradesh on the back of a wave of support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This result helped propel the party to a majority in the lower house of Parliament, with 282 of 543 seats.

The magnitude of the win raised expectations that the BJP would come out on top in the by-polls, which are mid-term elections held for those seats that have fallen vacant since the previous election.

The results showed that while Mr. Modi had swung the national election by making it a presidential-style vote for or against his leadership, his charisma might not be enough to carry his party to power in state elections, where local issues and caste equations dominate the vote. It also raised questions about the BJP’s prospects in crucial upcoming state elections in Maharashtra and Haryana.

Some also saw the outcome as fallout from a polarizing BJP campaign that critics say sought to consolidate Hindu votes in Uttar Pradesh by spreading animosity against Muslims – and marked a return by the party, which has roots in India’s Hindu nationalist movement, to the religious agenda that defined its strategy a decade ago.

via BJP Fares Poorly in By-Elections in India’s Most-Populous State – India Real Time – WSJ.

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05/09/2014

Modi’s first 100 days looked more like Manmohan’s than Vajpayee’s

The new prime minister hasn’t faced a major crisis or unveiled a startlingly new policy.

For the last week, Indian newspapers, channels and websites have been plastered with evaluations of Narendra Modi’s first 100 days. From dedicating entire editions to the 100-day landmark to building complex timelines describing every policy announcement over the last three months (and even comparing what has been achieved to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign promises), there has been so much content that it’s hard to arrive at a conclusion about whether Modi’s Prime Ministership has been good or bad.

That might be expected, considering the scale of the challenge that the new government has set for itself. Alternatively, it might also be surprising: many expected Modi Sarkar to be a hate-it-or-love-it administration, rather than one that would leave people with lukewarm feelings.

Another way to approach the question might be to try and figure out how Modi’s first 100 days will be remembered. The first few months of new governments can often set the tone for what is to come. In hindsight, the trends picked up in the first days are then grafted on to narratives that are applied to entire tenures.

A look back at previous prime ministers might give us an inkling of how this will play out.

via Scroll.in – News. Politics. Culture..

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