South Asia Citizens Web

Episode from the Indian TV series Mamujaan ki Diary, originally aired on DD Urdu.

On 2 December 2014 , Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that in future 25 December would be celebrated as Good Governance Day because it was the birthday of Hindu nationalists Madan Mohan Malaviya and Atal Behari Vajpayee. Subsequently a circular was sent out to schools ordering them to cancel the public holiday on the 25 th and require children to come to school on Christmas Day for a variety of activities. Education Minister Smriti Irani was suspected of sending out the circular and lying when she denied it

what we have is an over-the-top ceremony with troopers reduced to caricatures. They come rushing towards the gates and halt in front of them, adjust their turbans, thump their chests and flex their muscles — pretty much like Popeye. The goose steps — a chilling throwback to the Nazi era — are way more exaggerated than they should be, a seemingly impossible anatomical feat with the leg almost touching the forehead.

If there’s one thing that the 102nd Indian Science Congress, held in Mumbai, will be remembered for, it’s the outrageous claims made at it about the achievements of science in ancient India, including the assertion that Indians between 7000 and 6000 BC knew how to make airplanes that could undertake “interplanetary travel”, and fly backwards and sideways, as well as forwards!

Liberals in India who lost patience with the UPA government and became supporters of Narendra Modi are puzzled by the prime minister’s silence over Sangh Parivar’s growing communal interventions. They should not be. That is his record in Gujarat over 12 years, it worked for him there, and he has come to power nationally on the back of it.