Wordsmiths & Newsplumbers

BY R K MISRA If a library is a thought in cold storage, a politician is a pragmatist selling pipedreams for a meal ticket. Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is nearing an year in national harness has had a charmed existence cashing in on a negatively projected  past while proclaiming his own governance as the harbinger of a bright future. "achche din aane wale hai”- good times are round the corner.  Modi will complete a year on May 26 this year but people still wait for the professed deliverance, their patience wearing thin. Meanwhile the wordsplurge continues. Like before. Four thousand six hundred and ten days in the  chief ministerial chair in Gujarat, we were fed dollops of it. The past provides a perfect mirror to the future so let's take a look. With great fanfare and at great expense- the then chief minister Modi announced the revival of the mythical Saraswati river at Siddhpur in North Gujarat on September 8, 2005 through diversion of the Narmada wat

By R K Misra Time discovers truth. In India, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) does this job. No wonder the Gujarat model,assiduously used by erstwhile chief minister Narendra Modi to catapult himself to the prime ministerial calling , lies in tatters after the CAG placed it’s report for the period ending March 31, 2014 on the table of the Gujarat Assembly on March 31, 2015. The report provides a classic example of how marketing savvy politicians-in- power use all the elements of brand building – good advertising, repeat messaging, catchlines and chest thumping-to go places. The CAG has taken the government apart for financial indiscipline and  poor spending. ” The fiscal deficit increased from Rs 15,513 crores in 2009-10 to Rs 18,422 crores in 20013-14. It also pointed out the non-submission of utilization certificates of Rs 7420.40 crores bringing out the lack of monitoring by the respective departments. Modi ruled Gujarat from 2001 to mid-2014 before taki

By R K Misra   Pregnant pauses petrify. The best seems over from close and the worst worries from a distance. The deadly duo-Narendra Modi and Amit Shah- who delivered India firmly into saffron hands through the 2014 general poll mandate, find themselves in precisely such a predicament today. The Delhi drubbing signals the end of the honeymoon while the looming Bihar battle no longer augers well. Is this the end of the joyride or the beginning of disillusionment? Let’s analyse. If criminal domination turned politics into a trip through a sewer in a glass bottomed boat, the art of elections sequenced into a systematic organization of unabashed idolatry has carried the day in the 2014 general elections early this year. A turning point in independent India’s chequered history, these polls binned the Congress and brought a clear majority BJP government headed by Narendra Modi to power at the Centre for the first time. “India is not Gujarat”, said the Congress before t