Freebies Feast: Dragon Gauntlets; French Fire
Opinion Watch
Freebies Feast
The Asian Age has in its Editorial hauled over the coal Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertions made in Madhya Pradesh that the people should watch out against false guarantees. The daily said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Shivraj Singh Chouhan is himself in the midst of competitive freebies with the Congress.
The New Delhi-based daily also scorched Modi’s high moral grounds on false promises of the Opposition, reminding that there is a long list of unfulfilled commitments by his own government, which includes doubling of farmers’ income by 2023, employments, guarantees that sugar-coated demonetization in 2016. The daily lamented that “we still have to bridge the yawning economic gap that makes a large section of the society dependent on the government”.
Modi believes in taking away subsidies from those who can earn to channel money for those who vote on grounds of government reaching direct benefits to them. The BJP and the Congress are in the same boat, and both have abundantly failed in lifting the ever dependent chunk of the population on the government.
Dragon Gauntlets
The Indian Express in its Editorial has cautioned that the expansion of BRICS may be a China project to bring in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) nations in the club. The daily has said that Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, the UAE, Egypt are waiting in line to join the BRICS this August.
The Noida-based daily rued that BRICS may take a shape of an anti-US club, with tacit backing of Russia. It also noted that India has reluctantly come on board to allow additions of a few nations in the grouping.
BRICS is now largely a talking shop, with the economies of the constituents – China, South Africa and Brazil — in terrible shape. Argentine currency is now fast becoming a piece of paper. India may not need to worry too much of China influence in BRI nations, which are battling debts, and script own economic and political engagements with new members.
French Fire
The Economic Times in its Editorial has said that France has been attacked by a “20th-century blight”. The daily has pinned down “police brutality, administrative neglect, and sectarian imbalance” for the raging fire in France in the aftermath of the killing of 17-year-old Nahal M by a police officer.
The business daily credited French President Emmanuel Macron for making efforts to address deprivations in the low income housing estates on the fringes of the cities and town inhabited by immigrants. The daily argued that updating the state agencies to align with diversity should be a governance priority.
France was a colonial power and the people from the former colonies have settled in suburbs of the European nation, which is true for other imperialist countries. That they hector the developing countries for inclusive governance and secularism stand exposed, as Paris fails to deal with rioters, while also lacking the moral template.
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