Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )
Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2018 5:16 am
Not just the government employees. Nearly every one is looking for revert to pre2014.
Voice of the Republic
https://bharatganrajya.com/forum/
Which foreign minister uses Twitter as a primary communication tool to approve visas, upbraid her staff or issue instructions to bureaucrats in full public view? Shows how immature Sushma Swaraj is. She is like a school girl showing off her power.krisna wrote: ↑Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:47 pmSushma Swaraj got twitter finger happy. yes, a lot of good has happened with her trying to make things move fast. But in this case, surely singed her fingers and mind. She should not have done things which will demoralize her own officers in public. yes, she can praise and appreciate them but not scold them. OTOH, same with public-could have politely mentioned on Twitter -I will look into the matter etc. come back after few hours or 1-2 days and announce her decision.
Nice to get some solid thappad to our twitter minister. Hope she learns from this episode.
Cancellation Of China Trip In A Huff By Mamata Banerjee Embarrasses India
by Jaideep Mazumdar
Jun 23, 2018,
Snapshot
Mamata Banerjee was annoyed when her request to meet senior leaders of Communist Party of China was rejected.
Clearly, there were differences between Banerjee’s perception of her own importance at the national level and how the Chinese perceive her.
India has been left red-faced after Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee cancelled a scheduled trip to China on Friday afternoon, hours before she was to have boarded an aircraft to Beijing. Mamata Banerjee was miffed when it appeared that her request for a meeting with senior leaders of the Communist Party of China (CPC) would not be granted. She announced the cancellation in a huff through a series of tweets.
The Bengal Chief Minister was to have gone to China on a eight-day visit under an exchange programme between the Government of India and the international department of the CPC. The programme was initiated in 2004. Chief ministers of many other states have visited China under this programme, but this was the first time that a CM asked for a meeting with top CPC office-bearers.
Though no one would come on record, a senior state government official who was involved in the planning of the trip said that Mamata Banerjee insisted on meeting a member of the CPC's Politburo Standing Committee, the apex body of the party which has the Chinese President and Prime Minister among its seven members. Banerjee felt that only a meeting with a member of the CPC’s highest body would be “in keeping with her role in national politics”. She fancies herself as a prime minister-in-waiting or, at least, one who will prop up a future prime minister of the country and, thus, one with a major role in India’s politics. Clearly, the Chinese do not think so.
This is what Mamata Banerjee said through her tweets on Friday:
“In March this year, the Union Minister of External Affairs had recommended to me to kindly consider leading a delegation to China in the coming months under the Exchange Programme of the Government of India with the International Department of the Communist Party of China.
In response, on April 2, 2018, I appreciated her recommendation for me to lead the delegation to China under the Exchange Programme. I mentioned to her that “since the interest of my country is involved, I wish to visit China sometime during last week of June 2018”.
Thereafter, in pursuance of the letters from Chief Secretary and the Ambassador of India in China, a programme was chalked out, based on which we planned our visit in the coming week.
Till yesterday, everything was going on well, but unfortunately, the Chinese side could not confirm the political meetings at appropriate level as informed by our Ambassador in China.
It has now been intimated by our Ambassador in China that the political meetings at the appropriate level under the Exchange Programme could not be confirmed. Therefore, the purpose of my visit with a delegation to China under the Exchange Programme is of no use.
Although our Ambassador in China had tried his best to make the programme a success, non-confirmation of the political meetings at the appropriate level as proposed by the Indian Ambassador to China, at the last moment, has unfortunately compelled us to cancel the visit.
However, I wish the continuation of the friendship of India and China in the days to come and it should strengthen further in the interest of both the countries.”
The Chinese consulate in Kolkata was quick to respond with a cryptic statement: “The Chinese side was working hard to prepare for the CM’s visit and was still working on the arrangements and remained in contact with the Indian Embassy in China when the cancellation was announced”.
Clearly, there were differences between Mamata Banerjee’s perception of her own importance at the national level and how the Chinese perceive her. Her perception of “political meetings at the appropriate level” does not match that of the Chinese, who felt that a politician at the “appropriate level” for Mamata Banerjee would be the Mayor of Beijing who she was reportedly scheduled to meet. The Mayor of Beijing enjoys the same status as the governor of a province in that country and, hence, the Chinese felt it was appropriate to have the Mayor, Chen Jining, meet Mamata Banerjee.
Also, the Chinese are extremely conscious of protocol, and the CPC, say Indian diplomats who have served in that country, is extremely hide-bound and bureaucratic. “Top Chinese leaders, especially the members of the CPC’s politburo standing committee, will never meet the chief minister of a state. They will meet only the Indian Prime Minister, President, Vice-President or, at most, a very important cabinet minister. For that matter, they don’t meet even Governors of states in the US, posts loosely comparable to that of Indian CMs. It was thus unrealistic of the Bengal CM to expect to be granted meetings with the politburo members,” said a serving IFS officer who had done a stint in Beijing a few years ago.
The reason Mamata was sore over China’s reluctance to grant her request was that it put paid to her plans to showcase such a meeting to assert her importance at the national level. Select mediapersons in Kolkata were reportedly briefed by top Trinamool leaders that Mamata Banerjee would be meeting top Chinese leaders who no other visiting chief minister from India had met. “Mamata Banerjee’s plan was to return and tell everyone that she was given a lot more importance by the Chinese than other CMs who had visited that country because the Chinese recognised her importance. When the Chinese refused to play ball, she realised her visit would yield no political dividends back home and so she cancelled it,” said a prominent lawyer and former Trinamool member who was once close to Mamata Banerjee.
Mamata Banerjee’s desire to meet at least one CPC politburo member was conveyed by Bengal Chief Secretary Malay Kumar De to the Ministry of External Affairs. The matter was then taken up with the Chinese foreign ministry by India’s ambassador to China Gautam Bambawale. The Chinese side reportedly told Bambawale that such an unusual request would be difficult to consider. “We did try to persuade the Chinese to schedule even a short meeting with a Politburo member, but that did not happen. Even on Friday morning (Bengal Chief Secretary) Malay De requested foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale to intervene with the Chinese, and our ambassador was in contact with the Chinese foreign office till Friday afternoon. But Beijing didn’t want to break protocol,” said a senior officer in the South Block. Mamata Banerjee, say some officials in Kolkata, was reportedly ready to settle for a meeting with Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan, but that also could not be arranged.
Banerjee was to have also met CEOs of major Chinese companies in Beijing and then in Shanghai. The business meet at Shanghai slated for 28 June was being organised jointly by the Bengal government, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and the China Council for Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT). A few prominent industrialists from Bengal were scheduled to be present at these business meets with Chinese CEOs, where Mamata Banerjee was to have made a strong pitch for Chinese investments in her state.
The cancellation of the trip has severely embarrassed South Block mandarins. “A lot of work goes in to arrange such official visits. The prestige of the country is also involved and protocol is strictly followed. A visiting dignitary cannot make an unreasonable or unusual request that would be a departure from the protocol of the host country and expect to be humoured. The unilateral cancellation of such a visit, and the way it was announced through a series of tweets, is very embarrassing for us and has never happened before. Even if the Bengal CM was unhappy and wanted to cancel her visit, she should have conveyed heer decision to us (the MEA) and we would have informed the Chinese. That is the way things work. And both sides could have then come up with a mutually acceptable reason for the visit being cancelled. The cancellation of the visit unilaterally by the Bengal CM and the way it was announced also embarrassed the Chinese,” said the serving IFS officer at the MEA.
What South Block did not take into account, however, was Mamata Banerjee’s whimsical and mercurial nature and her propensity to fly into a rage if things don’t work her way.
Jaideep Mazumdar is an associate editor at Swarajya.
MEA must move beyond Nehruvian past
Ravi Shanker Kapoor
June 23, 2018,
Our foreign office must perceive the machinations of pinkish UN tsars and discern the pattern in UN actions.
John O’Sullivan, a British conservative commentator, has a law named after him. O’Sullivan’s First Law says: “All organisations that are not actually Rightwing will over time become Leftwing.” The United Nations has obeyed the law. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ report on Kashmir shows the intensity of transmogrification the world body has undergone.
Its lies and deception—the report refers to terror outfits as “armed groups”—have been widely commented upon in the media. India has rightly trashed it as “fallacious, tendentious and motivated”. But what foreign policy mandarins and experts have missed is the most critical point: the report is part of the Left-liberal enterprise, supported by Islamist and jihad-compliant forces, to malign democratic nations and peddle moral equivalence. Worse, India itself has often played into the hands of such forces.
Consider this: On 13 June, India voted in favour of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution, proposed by Turkey and Algeria, condemning the use of allegedly “excessive” force by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians in what the UN calls “Occupied Palestinian Territory”. At the same time, it abstained on a US-backed amendment aimed at denouncing violence by Hamas. The latter resolution fell through.
Our foreign office must do more to perceive the machinations of pinkish UN tsars; it must discern the pattern in UN actions; it needs to comprehend the thread running through most UN statements and resolutions. The truth is that the UN relentlessly badgers democracies (especially Israel and the US), turns a blind eye to the worst human rights offenders like Saudi Arabia and China, and peddles moral equivalence.
Anti-Americanism is rampant globally; liberal media and Left-leaning academia intensify it every day. But if India aspires to become a power to reckon with, as it does, it has to do better than follow the herd. It should know how to protect its national interest; and before that, it should know what its national interest is.
India can’t expect the US to goad Pakistan to rein in its jihadist puppets while supporting anti-Israel resolutions and remaining neutral on Washington-sponsored ones. And it’s not just realpolitik; it is also problematic to maintain neutrality over the crimes of Hamas, which is an Islamist body. And it would be presumptuous on the part of India to expect meaningful and heartfelt cooperation from Israel in a war against global jihad while persisting with the Nehru era phraseology.
On the anti-Israel resolution, US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley said before the vote: “This resolution holds Hamas completely unaccountable for most of the recent unrest. It blames everything on Israel. But the facts tell a different story. It is Hamas and its allies that have fired over a hundred rockets into Israel in the past month, hoping to cause death to as many civilians and as much destruction as possible. It is Hamas that has used Palestinian civilians as human shields at the boundary fence, seeking to incite violence and overrun the border. It is Hamas that refuses to cooperate with the Palestinian Authority to unite in the pursuit of peace. It is Hamas that calls for the destruction of the state of Israel within any borders. And yet the resolution before us not only fails to blame Hamas for these actions, it fails to even mention Hamas.”
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon was equally scathing on the resolution: “By supporting this resolution, you are colluding with a terrorist organisation and empowering Hamas.” But this is exactly what India, and scores of other countries, did.
The UN Human Rights Commission’s report on Kashmir should be scrutinised against such a backdrop; like the UNGA resolution and several other activities, it is also a joint venture between the Left-liberal grandees and Islamists. Their objectives are common: smear democracies (and downplay gross human rights violations in places like Muslim countries), instil guilt among politicians and people in democracies (and thus undermine their resolve to combat terror), and disseminate moral equivalence (so that security personnel and terrorists become “two sides” in conflict.)
The resolutions at the UNGA are designed with expert care to make military and paramilitary commanders of Israel think twice before acting against jihadists. The US administration of Donald Trump is under pressure from the media and other opinion makers (who are the ideological brethren of UN bosses) to adopt appeasement policies. Similarly, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ report on Kashmir becomes an inhibiting factor for the officers of Army and paramilitary forces.
It is unfortunate if our foreign policymakers miss the thread of the narrative that Left-liberals and Islamists together are spreading all over the world. The MEA must realise the true nature of the UN and of national interest. It must avoid the knee-jerk, pro-forma reactions of the Nehruvian past
The hans are very status and protocol conscious.
This is pure BS on her part. She is playing to the gallery, with 2019 in mind.
the govt can't be both 'likely to return' while ' Nearly every one is looking for revert to pre2014'. both can't be true.
dilli is aap country.Pratyush wrote: ↑Sun Jun 24, 2018 1:35 pmI Delhi who ever I have spoken to it looking for a return to pre 2014 situation.
But I am hopeful that the rural voters will vote for Modi to continue with what is a performer government.
The problem with most urban voters is that they have access to english language media. Both broadcast and print.
The negativity is seen to be believed.
There are no local politicians in china.
-She started appeasing Muslims and Pakistans by giving medical visas. Looks like she wants to be in limelight and seek attention. Recently she has been operated for kidney transplant. I doubt whether the doctors replaced kidney or her brain.
-She is almost dead woman as she runs on only one kidney (borrowed from some one else ) and any time that can stop working .
-Biased decision #ISupportVikasMishra shame on you mam...is it effect of your islamic kidney??
Comrade Visakh who painted an image denigrating Saraswati Devi is no more. He took the extreme step last week.Communist fraternity with the aid of fundamentalists forced him to misuse his talents to deploy their anti-hindu agenda.
J&K Governor NN Vohra clearly means business, makes Biometric Attendance system mandatory from June. No salary would be drawn in favour of Govt employees if they don’t get enrolled in Biometric System. Shocking to see that successive state Govts in J&K did not implement it.