Hindu Rate; Poisoning Girls; Wasting Waste
Opinion Watch
Hindu Rate
Former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan has revived Raj Krishna’s 1978 term of ‘Hindu Rate of Growth’, which had been the case since 1950s to 1970s. The Telegraph in its Editorial said the term stood for growth rate between 3.5 per cent to four per cent. The Kolkata-based daily opined that the Indian growth had been decelerating, which accentuated during the pandemic. Lukewarm private investment, high interest rate and depressed global economy are trinity of the challenges faced by the Indian economic managers, noted the daily.
The newspaper has further stated that while economic slowdown dents political appeal of the ruling dispensation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ducked the trend in 2019 and that seems now being confirmed with state verdicts. Economic growth and electoral performance hardly ever had relations, which could be seen in elections. Even while India was in the midst of the golden decade of economic growth, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was unveiled in 2005 solely for the purpose of shielding the rural poor from growing inequities. Modi has proven to be the master of the politics of welfarism. Economic growth doesn’t fetch votes.
Poisoning Girls
The Hindu has said that the remark of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that poisoning of schoolgirls is an unforgivable crime is an admission that thousands of girls in the Islamic country has been subjected to attacks. The Chennai-based daily also noted that Khamenei’s remark may mean that girls had been subjected to chemical poisoning. Yet, the double-speak is evident, said the daily, as the journalist Ali Pourtabatabaei, who first reported the case of chemical poisoning was arrested.
The daily expressed surprise that Iran is cracking down against girls even while the Islamic country encouraged women to pursue education in the last few decades. The lament is facile. Girls in Iran challenged the supreme might of the Islamic ruler by rejecting their version of religion and way of life. Girls in Iran defied deaths. They were unafraid. They instilled dreads in the Iranian dictators. Such courage has invited chemical attacks. Irony is that a newspaper of the status of The Hindu is too timid to call a thug a thug.
Wasting Waste
The Communist Kerala administration seems to have no answer to organized corruption, as The New Indian Express in an Editorial gave an account of the waste management outsourced to firms linked to politicians with subletting, while garbage is set afire to condemn people to live life under toxic fumes in Kochi. The Madurai-based daily said that 115-acre yard is now regularly on fire, ostensibly as a resort to get rid of garbage quickly.
The Madurai-based daily has cited the examples of Indore and Pune where the waste management has been profitable for municipal corporations. There should be no doubt that municipal corruption is a national curse, and the least Pinarayi Vijayan government could do is to send officials involved to jails to deter their peers and invite the Indore commissioner for way out.
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