Trudeau’s Tricks; Fearing Delimitation; Whither Shantiniketan
Justin Trudeau; Parliament; Shantiniketan
Opinion Watch
Trudeau’s Tricks
The Indian Express in its Editorial on raging India-Canada diplomatic row asked: “Where is the evidence, Mr Trudeau.” David Eby, the premier of British Columbia in Canada, has questioned the veracity of the claims of Justin Trudeau, prime minister, of “credible allegations against potential involvement of Indian agents in killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar”. Eby has said that Trudeau’s evidences shared with him before making allegation in parliament were picked from the internet. The Noida-based daily also echoed its views on similar lines, while roasting Trudeau for pandering to Khalistani separatists, and not acting on droves of facts-based evidences given by New Delhi to Ottawa.
Commentators have also noted Chinese influence in the Canadian politics, and patterns implicate Trudeau in a trap of geo-politics by anti-Indian elements.
Fearing Delimitation
The Asian Age in its Editorial has revisited the issue of delimitation, paused in 2002 by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government for 25 years on the line of Indira Gandhi dispensation in 1973, to spotlight the growing concerns of the southern states that they most lose out. The New Delhi-based daily cited a Carnegie report to claim that Tamil Nadu may lose eight seats, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh together six seats, Kerala eight seats, and Karnataka two seats. Uttar Pradesh may gain 11 seats, claimed the daily, which at the same time noted anomaly also – Malkajgiri Lok Sabha seat in Telangana has 31.5 lakh voters while Lakshadweep merely has 64,000 voters.
Popular control measures surely cannot be disincentivised, and the future Delimitation Commission would have to work out innovative ways to protect the status quo, while addressing the issue of the size of the parliamentary constituencies.
Whither Shantiniketan
India’s foremost cultural icon Rabindranath Tagore’s legacy risks being confined to literature only, as The Telegraph in its Editorial in the listing of Shantiniketan as a UNESCO heritage site, underlined that the stolen Nobel Prize medal is not yet recovered and the ideas propagated by the institution have few takers. “An ugliness of sensibility seems to have replaced the aspiration of beauty, violence is overtaking peace, the abuse of power is wiping out impulses to friendship…,” lamented the Kolkata-based daily.
The decay of the institutions that oversaw India’s cultural renaissance is worthy of lamentations, but that follows the overall trend of social and moral decay in the society.
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