Updated: February 15, 2021 1:43 pm IST
In February 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a speech in Parliament, ridiculed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) program as a symbol of the policy failures of the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government headed by Dr. Manmohan Singh and, in his typical coarse style, taunted that he would bleed the program to a slow death.
Exactly six years later, on February 12, 2021, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman rose in Parliament and proudly proclaimed that the Modi government has implemented MGNREGA program the best and incurred the highest expenditure ever in its 15-year history. In her characteristic television debate panelist style, she mocked the Congress party for not being able to match such levels of spending for the program during its tenure in government. Even by the low standards of public rhetoric, the hypocrisy of the Finance Minister was stunning.
Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], February 15 (ANI): Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Monday said Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders should join Congress to stop the growth of BJP in West Bengal.
Times Now, with headlines announcing that the new laws now had US backing.
In fact, the US State Department statement, while cautiously welcoming “steps that would improve the efficiency of India’s markets”, called for dialogue with the farmers and underlined that peaceful protests and freedom of expression are the “hallmark” of a democracy.
That it is the foreign media doing investigative journalism in and about India should raise some difficult questions, said Ayyub, the
Washington Post columnist. “Why have we not been able to do a single damning expose in Indian publications in the last five years?” she said. “…This is the time to take a stand and take an aggressive stand. Journalism is not even in danger, they have managed to intimidate us into silence, that process has happened.”