DTN News - INDIA NEWS: Sonia Gandhi ~ Congress Debacle In Elections 2014 - Due To Unending Scams And Corruption In UPA Government

Asia News Report: DTN News - INDIA NEWS: Sonia Gandhi ~ Congress Debacle In Elections 2014 - Due To Unending Scams And Corruption In UPA Government

*Robert Vadra busy ‘salvaging’ land in Bikaner

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources TOI
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - June 7, 2014: (BIKANER) As Narendra Modi gets ready to be sworn in as Prime Minister, Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra and his team are busy gathering documents to get requisite corrections done in purchase of huge swaths of land in Bikaner district. 

In the run up to the elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had pledged to probe the land deals of Vadra once it comes to power. The party had also released a CD detailing how the Ashok Gehlot government shielded the alleged dubious deals of the son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi. Four Vadra companies bought land in excess to permissible limit under the Land Ceiling Act. The report of the district collector revealed that the Gehlot government changed the Land Ceiling Act, purposely to help Vadra buy lands. 

Latest reports say that Vadra has deputed a few individuals, who are camping in Bikaner and trying hard to collect documents in view of possible legal battles. A key member of Vadra team, Mahesh Nagar, is visiting Bikaner frequently.

Sources say that Nagar was holding meetings with district officials secretly and trying to collect papers from them. He was reportedly the front man when Vadra companies bought land in Bikaner.According to sources, Nagar is continuing the process of purchase of land and even in May 2014, Nagar purchased nearly 1,000 bighas in Pokhran tehsil of Jailsalmer district. 

TOI could not contact Nagar, though officials confirmed his presence in the district. Nagar reportedly belongs to Haryana. 

As per the provisions of Rajasthan Imposition of Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1973 there is a ceiling limit of 280 bigha in the state. It means that a person is allowed to possess not more than 280 bigha of land. 

However, Gehlot government amended Section 17 of Rajasthan Imposition of Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1973 in September 2010, that too with retrospective effect. The amendment says that restrictions on quantum of land deal shall not apply to a person who acquires the land with the prior approval of the state government or any other authority appointed by it. Moreover, records show that the "soul" of the Act was changed without debate in the state assembly. 

After taking over as chief minister, Vasundhara Raje issued letters to district collectors of Bikaner and Jodhpur for providing data of land deals in their districts. According to sources, collector of Bikaner sent a report saying that companies of Robert Vadra had purchased nearly 2,503 bigha in Bikaner district, out of which nearly 1,124 bigha had already been sold. 

According to BJP's Bikaner MP Arjun Ram Meghwal, Vadra-owned companies Sky Light Hospitality Pvt. Ltd., Blue Bridge Trading Pvt. Ltd., Skylight Reality Pvt. Ltd., Real Earth Estates Pvt. Ltd. and North India IT Park Pvt. Ltd bought 1,634 hectors (6,536 bighas) (1 hector = 4 bigha approx) land in in Bikaner district. Through these companies, land had been purchased in Kolayat, Gajner, Golari, Darbari, Sarah Kishnayat, Basti Chauhanan, Sarah Sutharan villages in Kolayat tehsil.

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DTN News - INDIA NEWS: The Future of India's National Congress Dynastic Party Is In Doubt

Asia News Report: DTN News - INDIA NEWS: The Future of India's National Congress Dynastic Party Is In Doubt
*Descendants of Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi have had trouble governing a changing India
*Some see the end of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty in the Indian National Congress' huge election loss

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources Shashank Bengali
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - June 1, 2014: It is one of the most storied names in political history, a party synonymous with modern India and an inspiration for revolutionary movements led by the likes of South Africa's Nelson Mandela and Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh.

But a disastrous performance in the recent national elections has many wondering whether this is the end for the Indian National Congress party.

The party that has led India for most of its 67 years as an independent nation was thumped out of power, winning a paltry 44 of 543 parliamentary seats — its lowest tally by far — and prompting serious questions about the leadership of the Gandhis, the first family of Indian politics.

Related story: Pakistanis in disputed Kashmir worry about rise of Indian nationalist
Aoun Sahi, Shashank Bengali

The descendants of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's erudite first prime minister, and his strong-willed daughter, Indira Gandhi, have proved less adept at governing a fast-changing India. With the party's last several years in power subsumed by corruption scandals and economic calamities, the once-revered family name increasingly reeks of a stale dynasty that has even longtime supporters clamoring for the Gandhis to step aside.

An editorial in the Hindustan Times, a national newspaper run by former Congress party lawmaker Shobhana Bhartia, said the party is "seemingly in terminal decline" and needs to find a new generation of leaders.

"It has to undergo a drastic mind-set change and reevaluate many of its core principles, among them the relevance of dynastic rule," the newspaper said.

Some critics are writing the party's obituary. "They are not going to come back," said Mohan Guruswamy, a prominent economist who has advised Congress' rival, the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party.

The party faithful counter that Congress has lost before and come back strong. "Congress has always fought back, and there is no reason it can't fight back again," said Eknath Gaikwad, a Congress lawmaker from south-central Mumbai.

Congress' decline represents an epochal change for a fractious nation long held together by the party's big-tent liberalism. It comes as India appears to be turning rightward after overwhelmingly electing the BJP, whose leader, new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, rails against Congress' signature welfare and affirmative action programs aimed at historically disadvantaged lower castes and the rural poor.

Gandhi allies criticize the BJP as Hindu chauvinists, noting that none of its 282 Parliament members are from the Muslim community, which accounts for about 14% of India's 1.2 billion people. But as much as it sees pluralism as a founding principle, Congress has not embraced that ethos at the very top of its hierarchy, which is strictly a family affair.

Related story: From tea-seller to India's top job: The rise of Narendra Modi
Parth M.N.
Days after the election embarrassment, the mother-son team that leads Congress, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, met with advisors in New Delhi and reportedly offered their resignations. According to Indian news accounts in Indian media, the advisors spent more than half of the three-hour meeting imploring them not to go. The meeting ended with a unanimous statement of faith in the Gandhis' leadership.

"Not much time was left for any introspection," the Times of India reported dryly.

Longtime party officials say they have failed in campaigning, not in governing. Beginning in 2004, the party ushered in near-universal education, expanded food subsidies and introduced a landmark government transparency law. It also embarked on one of the largest welfare programs of its kind in the world, a rural employment system that guaranteed every household 100 days of wage-earning work a year. Officials say it has provided jobs to about 50 million of the poorest Indian households.

But after Congress won reelection in 2009, a parade of corruption scandals came to light. The welfare programs and economic liberalization increased incomes, which in turn pushed up prices of basic goods and contributed to inflation, one of the main complaints among working-class voters.

Scholarly Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was seen as a puppet of Sonia Gandhi and too weak to confront errant party bosses.

"The accomplishments were not well articulated, and they got lost in the hullabaloo of the election campaign," lawmaker Gaikwad said.

A 75-year-old party stalwart who joined Congress because he was inspired by Nehru, Gaikwad rejects any suggestion that the Gandhis find new blood to lead the party. Referring to the assassinations of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and Sonia Gandhi's husband, Rajiv, in 1991, he said that no family has sacrificed as much for India's democracy.

India's young voters look to Narendra Modi for change
Shashank Bengali
"It's because of the Gandhi family that I am in Congress," Gaikwad said. "They're the glue that keeps the Congress together, and Congress has laid the foundations of this country."

A younger group of party officials has begun to show hints of frustration with the family's stewardship, particularly that of the 43-year-old party vice president, Rahul. Square-jawed and Cambridge-educated, he had been billed as the party's leader of the future, but his diffident and distracted performances on the campaign trail have made him a national punch line., He eked out a narrow victory for his parliamentary seat in Amethi, a Gandhi family bastion for decades.

Some party insiders are said to want a bigger role for Rahul's sister, Priyanka, a political neophyte who nevertheless drew enthusiastic crowds in her few appearances on the campaign trail. The spitting image of her grandmother Indira, she carries political baggage: Her real-estate tycoon husband, Robert Vadra, is a fixture in Indian newspapers amid allegations of corrupt land deals.

"Everyone in India makes money the way the son-in-law makes money — it's the crony capitalist system — but the family is expected to be above all this," Guruswamy said.

Analysts see real danger for Congress because it suffered major election setbacks in its longtime strongholds in the so-called Hindi heartland of north and central India. With more Indians living in urban areas, Congress' rural base has softened. So, too, has its appeal as India's founding party, with a growing number of young voters more interested in private sector jobs and clean government.

Party stalwarts point out that Congress has been down before: in 1977, when it was drubbed at the polls after Indira Gandhi instituted emergency rule, and in 2004, when a BJP-led government swept into power for the first time. Both times, the party recovered to win the next national election.

"People have written our obituary before," Gaikwad said. "In five years the people will be disillusioned by Mr. Modi and they will come back to us."

Special correspondent Parth M.N. contributed to this report.

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DTN News - INDIA ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS 2013 RESULTS: BJP Wins Congress Routed

Asia News Report: DTN News - INDIA ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS 2013 RESULTS: BJP Wins Congress Routed
**Factors of Congress debacle - Foremost corruption, public's lack of trust in the UPA government, bar on  dynasty rule, Congress contrived cases via CBI on oppositoin and  protect tainted supporters / politicians

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources Defence News

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - December 8, 2013: Congress party's 0-4 mauling and BJP's triumph in three states in what was billed as the "semifinal" for the 2014 elections was the big headline, but the central takeaway on super Sunday was Aam Aadmi Party's stunning debut in Delhi, prising open space in national politics for an outsider.

Congress's debacle exposed its sliding popularity as well as Rahul Gandhi's failure to connect with the voters. It has also fortified the perception of Narendra Modi-led BJP being the frontrunner for 2014. For all practical purposes, the UPA government will now be a lame duck one.

The BJP won a three-fourth majority in Rajasthan, scored a two-third victory in Madhya Pradesh and beat back Congress in Chhattisgarh after a ding-dong battle. In Delhi, only AAP prevented BJP from a clear victory, but its tally of 31 still underscored its advantage over Congress which crumbled to a measly eight seats.

The clear man of the match was AAP's Arvind Kejriwal. He not only beat Sheila Dikshit by a margin of over 25,000 votes, his party fed off a deep disillusionment with the political class, boosting hopes of a new brand of politics, perhaps a desi version of the Arab Spring.

As a result, the spunky rookie subverted traditional assumptions about vote banks by drawing support from diverse socio-economic strata. AAP finished second to the BJP, but the victory of its greenhorn candidates over heavyweights belonging to Congress and BJP was reminiscent of the waves of 1977 and 1984, a feat that would encourage it to go beyond Delhi in 2014.

Predictably, there was a debate over how much the Modi factor impacted the BJP landslides in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and in Chhattisgarh. Party insiders insisted Modi was a strong force multiplier and that in Delhi, he helped it emerge as the single-largest party.

Whatever the case, the result can only add to Modi's aura and provide BJP tailwind as it heads for the LS challenge. The fact that Congress succumbed to incumbency and crashed to humiliating defeats in Rajasthan and Delhi whereas BJP held its own in MP and Chhattisgarh would be cited to argue that something beyond "local issues" was in play here.

Both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi acknowledged the role of larger factors in Congress defeats. But they said Gehlot's and Dikshit's losses were baffling, given their good governance records.

Sonia spoke of inflation, one of the many issues that Modi will exploit in 2014 when he, with his tantalizing promise of a decisive leader and much-trumpeted Gujarat model of development, will be in the fray himself, seeking to tap into the same yearning for change which helped Kejriwal in Delhi.

Rahul Gandhi acknowledged that there was a lesson in AAP's dramatic debut and said "aggressive changes" would now be carried out in the Congress to "embed" the common man in Congress programmes.

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DTN News - SPECIAL REPORT: India Fumes After Sarabjit Singh Dies In Pakistan

Asia News Report: DTN News - SPECIAL REPORT: India Fumes After Sarabjit Singh Dies In Pakistan
*Sarabjit Singh death: Pakistani and Indian media coverage
*Sarabjit Singh's death: Sukhbir Singh Badal flays Centre - Indian ...
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Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith & Reuters  +
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - May 3, 2013:  India reacted furiously to Thursday's death in a Pakistani jail of convicted spy Sarabjit Singh, who was badly beaten last week by fellow inmates, the latest incident to strain relations between the neighbours.

Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the partition of British-ruled India in 1947, although they began a peace process in 2004. They remain deeply suspicious of each other.

Singh was arrested in Pakistan in 1991 and sentenced to death for spying and carrying out four bomb blasts that killed 14 people. His family says he was an innocent farmer who was arrested after drunkenly wandering over the border.

Singh was hospitalized with a head injury on Friday after two fellow prisoners attacked him in jail in the eastern city of Lahore. India's government and his family had pleaded with Pakistan to let him return to India for treatment.

"The criminals responsible for the barbaric and murderous attack on him must be brought to justice," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a statement.

"It is particularly regrettable that the government of Pakistan did not heed the pleas of the government of India, Sarabjit's family and of civil society in India and Pakistan to take a humanitarian view of this case."

Pakistan said it provided the best treatment for Singh, who it said had been comatose and on a ventilator following injuries sustained during a "scuffle" with fellow inmates.

"A sustainable and long lasting relationship between two countries has to be between people. That relation has been hurt by what has happened today," Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid told reporters.

The latest flare-up follows an outbreak of violence in the disputed territory of Kashmir in January, where two Pakistani and two Indian soldiers were killed. It was the worst clash there since India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire nearly a decade ago, leading to angry reactions from both sides.

Indian opposition parties and Sarabjit Singh's family came down hard on the government for being too soft with Pakistan. Parliament was adjourned for two hours after MPs shouted anti-Pakistan slogans.

"(The) centre is unable to give a strong answer to Pakistan's inhuman acts. Beheading of our soldiers and now Sarabjit's death are 2 recent examples," Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, widely tipped as a prime ministerial candidate, wrote on Twitter.

Despite the recent strains, India and Pakistan's relations have improved after nose-diving in 2008 when gunmen killed 166 people in Mumbai in a three-day rampage that India blamed on a Pakistani militant group. Last year, India hanged Pakistani citizen Ajmal Kasab, who was convicted of taking part in that attack.

(Reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in ISLAMABAD and Anurag Kotoky in NEW DELHI; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources & Reuters +  reliable sources
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