Wordsmiths & Newsplumbers

BY R.K.MISRA Narendra Modi brought BJP to   power,single-handed in 2014 cresting a promise to change the ethos of Indian politics and governance.He electrified hope.He energised India. With just months to go for his five year term to end   , the man and his weather-beaten party machine stand reduced to niggling name changers.  By last published count 19 of the 23 Congress led UPA government schemes sit soundly in new BJP led NDA make-up. The hackneyed ‘old wine in new bottle’ sums up the ruling BJP’s  pan- India penchant, post 2014. From schemes to cities has been a short walk on   a circuitous trail. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Aditya Nath’s high profile political polo of turning Faizabad into Ayodhya and Allahabad into Prayagraj at the inter-section of an RSS orchestrated campaign for the Ram Mandir in a bid to hustle the apex court, is now predictable poll politics. So is the Narendra Modi led BJP government’s consent, so far, to the renaming of   at least 25 towns a

BY R.K.MISRA Ghosts from the past have an uncanny way of turning up in the present with immense potential to blight the future of the most powerful. On November 3, a key witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh alleged fake encounter case told a Mumbai court that the murder of senior BJP leader and a former Gujarat minister Haren Pandya in 2003 was a contract killing executed at the behest of former IPS officer D.G.Vanzara. The   deposition of   Azam Khan, an Udaipur based small time gangster before the CBI court has brought to life the most speculated and worst-kept secret of the time-- that the murder of the   up and coming Gujarat BJP leader was a political extermination at the behest of some of the most powerful in the land of the Mahatma. Vanzara terms it as yet another conspiracy to defame him. ”Azam Khan is a criminal. There are cases against him in Gujarat, Rajasthan and some other states. Even today he is in jail. Moreover his evidence is hearsay. It does not accou

BY R.K.MISRA The Prime Minister of India added the tallest statue in the world to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s memorials and subtracted all that he stood for, in it’s dedication to the nation on his 143 rd birth anniversary . The 182 metre tall “Statue of Unity” built on the Narmada river at a cost of Rs 2989 crores facing the sprawling 1210 metre long sardar Sarovar dam, in Gujarat    has been billed as   the tallest in the world, surpassing China’s spring temple Buddha . Speaking on the occasion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dwelt at length on the legendary vision of the first deputy Prime Minister who had unified the country and appealed to countrymen to remain united against divisive forces. Minutes later, he was hauling the opposition over the coals for opposing his mission. The entire area of Kevadia colony had been turned into a policed fortress after the tribals of the region made known their resolve to boycott the function. The main inhabitants of the region