Big Brother; Premier Perils; Farmers’ Fury
Opinion Watch
Big Brother
“…selectively target Opposition parties and leaders is disturbing in Delhi, as it’s elsewhere,” opined The Indian Express in its Editorial, accusing the Narendra Modi government of “weaponising procedural technicalities” to delay Delhi Budget. The daily counselled the BJP also, saying that the task of an Opposition is not to create procedural hurdles.
The Noida-based daily also argued that the delay in the presentation of the Delhi Budget creates the perception that “the Centre is using all means, fair, not-so-fair and foul, to target its political opponents”.
Delhi Budget was to be presented on Tuesday, but lieutenant governor Vinai Kumar Saxena studied the document too hard to go crying to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The BJP in Delhi gives out an impression of a crybaby sitting in the lap of Ministry of Home Affairs. People don’t trust crybabies with responsibility of governance.
Premier Perils
The Telegraph has lamented in its Editorial that as many as 61 students have died by suicide in India’s premier technical institutions since 2018, with 33 such cases reported from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) alone. The daily further informed that 58 per cent of the students who died by suicides in IITs, IIMs, Central Universities and other institutions between 2014-2021 hailed from scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other backward castes.
The Kolkata-based daily further said that the National Crime Research Bureau (NCRB) data revealed a growing disturbing trend in education of 13089 students dying by suicides in educational institutions in 2021. The daily has faulted the curriculum pressure, cut-throat competition, employability stress, etc.
Educational systems show all signs of having become factories where human values matter least. The rat race to excellence by chasing marks may make commodities out of the students. This chain must be broken.
Farmers’ Fury
The Asian Age has counselled the BJP-led government at the Centre to speak to the agitating farmers and stop the cultivators from laying siege to the national capital once more. The daily reminded government promises which helped in ending 18-month farmers’ agitations.
The daily opined that the government had set up a committee on Minimum Support Price after seven months of making the promise. It also stated that the Modi government had been promising moon to farmers in each Budget since 2014. Farmers are also agitating for legal right to MSP.
The Modi government abandoned agrarian reforms after Punjab-based farmers laid siege to the national capital. Legal guarantee to MSP is a sure shot recipe for disaster. Best will be to tax agricultural income, and disband the FCI procurement of wheat and paddy, which sanctifies corruption of monumental magnitude.
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