BJP making Goa ‘Congress mukt’; Gujarat wins big over Maharashtra; Modi carries India’s health burden
Opinion Watch
Eight of the 11 Congress MLAs in Goa are now with the Bharatiya Janata Party, and that should make the state a one party affairs for all practical purposes.
The Indian Express and The Pioneer have commented on the desertion, lock stock and barrel, in the ranks of Congress. The Indian Express has taken swipe on Congress, commenting that even divine pledge didn’t come to the rescue of the opposition party.
Indeed, Congress had taken its MLAs in Goa to take a divine pledge to stay with the party. Such MLAs, if they had actually been honourable, should have quit Congress the same day for the herd treatment by the party.
The Indian Express has cited the instances of Arunachal Pradesh (2018), Karnataka (2019), Madhya Pradesh (2020), West Bengal (2021), Gujarat (2018-19). Theme is same the dominant parties take way the MLAs of the vulnerable outfits, with the BJP being on the receiving end only in West Bengal, while being the principal architect of the predatory model of politics.
But before one can lampoon the BJP, The Pioneer reminds that the authorship of the predatory art of poaching actually belong to Congress, while recounting the ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’ tales of the 1960s, 1970s when the lawmakers were bought wholesale.
The two dailies missed out to state that Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has also laid claim to the authorship of this script, as he’s known for ‘haath ki Safari’ before elections in the state.
Gujarat wins big over Maharashtra
Anil Agarwal for months had been meeting the chief ministers of a number of states such as Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh to bargain for the best of the terms for the investment by Vedanta-Foxconn for semiconductor plant, which will be the biggest in India. He has been seeking unprecedented advantages for making the investments.
Finally, he struck the deal with the Gujarat government for Rs 1.54 lakh crore investment to set up semiconductor. This gives a major fillip to Rs 75,000 crore semiconductor mission of the Central government for self-reliance in semiconductor chips, which are the soul of the modern economy, from autombiles to aviation, from mobile to missiles, from ships to satellites.
The Times of India in its Editorial calls for better competition among the states to attract big-ticket manufacturing investments, while underlining that stable industrial policy as prevailing in Tamil Nadu will be key to success.
The daily rightly rues the fact that 87 per cent of the investments in the country flow to just five states.
Modi carries India’s health burden
The National Health Accounts Estimates 2018-19 released this week revealed that the Central government is shouldering the burden of the health care in the country, with the private capital shying away.
The Economic Times in its Editorial counted the positives – higher government expenditure, out-of-pocket expenditure dipping from 69.4 per cent to 48.2 per cent, Central government’s share spiking to 40.6 per cent from 22.5 per cent, greater push in the primary healthcare.
But on the flip side, noted the daily, the expenditure on health as percentage of GDP is down from 4.2 per cent in 2004 to 3.2 per cent in 2018-19.
Indeed, the private capital is flowing into the tertiary health care where the scope of profit is maximum, while the corporate in India is yet to learn from Tata Trust to set up big hospitals for affordable healthcare.
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