Casting Women; Toothless Trudeau; Pension Plunder
Former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi; Canada's PM Justin Trudeau; FM Nirmala Sitharaman
Opinion Watch
Casting Women
Politics of social justice took centre stage with late VP Singh’s Mandal plot in late 1980s, and within a decade political offshoots were yoked to families in most of the states, becoming one of the principal reasons for shift in electoral discourse. The Tribune in its Editorial has advised the Opposition to not yoke the women once more in their caste politics by insisting on OBC reservation within the quota in the elected bodies for them. The Chandigarh-based daily has lamented the insistence of the Congress-led Opposition for OBC reservation in the ‘Nari Vandan Adhiniyam Bill’ that reserves one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and the assemblies for the women.
It may possibly serve well to release the caste data of the existing members of the Lok Sabha and the assemblies, for the principal grouse that the upper caste women will grab the benefits of quota may come out just as a figment of imagination.
Toothless Trudeau
Deccan Herald in a hard-hitting Editorial has hauled Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over the coal for his outlandish accusation that there are “credible allegations against Government of India in murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar”. The Bengaluru-based daily has spotlighted Canada’s slippery grounds of fostering terrorists in its backyard by turning blind eyes to the bombing of Kanishka, which had killed over 300 Canadian citizens. The daily has also suggested Trudeau’s bending over back to woo Sikh voters for the 2025 elections.
Needless to say, Trudeau is on slippery grounds. He has not even shared evidence in parliament where he made serious allegations. The western nations must call his bluff.
Pension Plunder
The first batch of pensioners who exited the Old Pension Scheme will get to see their pensions only in the early 2030s, and thus the Opposition is high on promises to bring back the previous regime. The Indian Express, citing a report of the RBI, has said in its Editorial that the burden to switch back would be 4.5 times than that of the New Pension Scheme (NPS). The Noida-based daily has also argued that the burden would balloon to 0.9 per cent of GDP by 2060, while stating that pension outgo amounted to 16.9 per cent of revenue expenditure in Uttar Pradesh, 17. 1 per cent for Kerala, and 19.3 per cent for Himachal Pradesh.
NPS is a defined contribution-based scheme, and the size of the corpus would be incumbent on investment decisions made by the fund managers, which in the case of a 30-year horizon should have left behind the OPS far behind.
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