2 years in office! Phew!!

Did you know that the United Progressive Alliance Government recently completeled two years in office? I didn't either, till I read it in a couple of online newspapers. So this brings me to the point where I try to take stock of the situation two years after Her Highness Mrs. Gandhi and her foot-soldiers came to power, riding on that thing called the Common Minimum Program, or is it Programme? I could find out but I dont really care.

I've seen, or read about crappy central governments before, but I haven't really followed any this closely before. And the irony is that I am about 10,000 miles away from them! Did you ever find yourself inself a position where some individual, through circumstances or just bad fortune, had your balls in such a strong grip that you had to do whatever they wanted you to do? I am sure we all have faced situations such as those, and apparently national governments face those situations too.

I don't know why the Chinese puppets didn't actively join the government, and if i remember correctly, at the time the government was formed, they didn't want to join because.......wait, I dont know. But what I do know is that Sonia Gandhi didn't become the Prime Minister of India, and while the Con'gress minions cried and cried themselves to sleep, The Queen took the high road, or like they say, made the supreme sacrifice, just like she did a few months ago when her conspiracy backfired. Wow, look at the Gandhi's man, her mother-in-law was the Prime Minister, her husband was the Prime Minister, and how the Prince is in training to be the next Prime Minister. As for her, well, she could order Congress netas to do backflips and they would gladly do it all day long.

Economy, economy, thats the name of the game in today's world, and today's India. So India gets an economist Prime Minister, a good Finance Minister and a good Chairman of the Planning Commission. Crack team for the economy, but a cracked team everywhere else. On second thoughts, the government wants to destroy that too by bringing in quota in the private sector. We get a gutless Home Minister in Shivraj Patil, and look where the Naxal situation is headed because of their hidden agendas. Ajrun Singh is, of course, following madams orders to the O. Create a safe, communally divided situation in UP for the Prince to step into. Well thats what some people say, others say Arjun Singh wants to be Prime Minister, thats why he is doing this. Whichever it is, these monkeys are bent on hurting the foundations of this nation for their own greed.

Coming to the internal situation, last year alone, there were terrorist attacks in Delhi, Bangalore, Ayodhya, Varanasi, and to me this suggests our internal defenses are getting weaker every day. The naxals are a bigger problem than they ever were before. But what to the Home Minister? Apparently they are just misguided youth looking for a decent living. No, Mr. Shivraj "I am here because I am Mrs. Gandhi's Chamcha" Patil, they are mercenaries fighting for their own country.

The surprise story is Lalu. The railways have turned around, and people say it is for real, and maybe Lalu has a big hand in this, and one can only wonder, why? I think its because after he and his extended family was drubbed in the Bihar elections, he realized that you can only keep your people backward for this long, and after a while they will start asking why they don't have roads to walk on or food to feed their families with, or why that goon on the streets keeps harrassing them everyday. So maybe Lalu thought, oh man, I better do something to salvage my reputation, and apparently he is doing a good job at it!

With greater economic strength comes greater respect, and I believe India has been learning that the last couple of years. The nuclear energy deal with the US is considered by some to be the most significant achievement of the USA, I mean the UPA. But other things are looking down, and like I said, how India handles the naxals and if Mrs. Gandhi is able to get away with her preposterous education quota scheme. Has one realized that not one Con'gress minister has come forward with even an iota of reasonable justification on the issue?

So heres the funny thing, the Chinese puppets didn't really like the way the Government performed the last two years. Oh my goodness, I could never have guessed! Burn in hell, traitors, burn in hell, and I mean both the Chinese pups and the Con'gress. India is the last thing on their minds.

Left not happy with UPA show

In a not-so-flattering assessment of the government on a day when the UPA patted itself on the back, the Left charged the UPA with going against the spirit of the CMP and alleged that the US was directly exercising influence on domestic policy-making.

It said the Planning Commission has become the “hub for initiation and pushing for such policies.” The Left also took note of the crash in the stock market saying volatility of the market underlined the danger of going for full capital account convertibility about which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has made an announcement.

“The two year record has shown the UPA government’s eagerness to push through policies which are in the interests of foreign finance capital and big business while it has been tardy in taking up those pro-people measures in the CMG which would benefit the working people,” the four Left parties said in a joint statement.

Earlier, at a press conference CPU MPs Based Atari and Rupchand Pal said the Left was skipping the function as “We are not able to swallow their agenda.” However, the comrades are attending the dinner to be hosted at the Prime Minister’s residence.

The CPM leaders said two years was not a small time and the UPA could have done many things particularly for the poorer sections and middle class. “This has not been done..... the government is bent upon going astray,” they said.

While appreciating the government’s efforts on just a handful of issues including abolition of POTA, right to information act, rural employment guarantee scheme and Kashmir talks, the Left’s catalogue of discontent is much longer.

Repeating its familiar anti-government rhetoric, the Left attacked the government on opening up FDI in single brand retail, fuel prices, plans to bring a legislation to amend the banking regulation act, privatising Mumbai and Delhi airports and the delay in legislation for agricultural workers.
----------------------------------------------------------

Ha ha, two semengobblers accusing each other of having agendas. I am sorry I even posted this crap, its everything we knew already.

meanwhile....

UPA in for more tightrope walks in third year

As his government enters its third year in office on Monday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may be bracing himself for more tightrope walking with a rejuvenated Left clamouring for a brake on reform policies and the reservation issue stalking the coalition.

A redeeming feature, though, for the UPA coalition, headed by Sonia Gandhi, is that the main opposition BJP remained embroiled in internal problems, while the Congress managed to be on the winning team in three states—Assam, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry—in the recent Assembly elections.

But the Left parties more than made up for the opposition and has threatened to play a more aggressive role in Parliament and outside on any violation by the government of the Common Minimum Programme.

Singh has been lucky to build bridges with leaders like Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, who led the Left win in West Bengal and is also talking the language of ushering in industry and investment in the eastern state, which is lagging behind in development.

The Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement was the feather in the cap of the economist-turned-politician as US President George W Bush, in search of friends, visited India and went the extra mile for providing energy security. That the US Congress has not yet approved the agreement is another story.

The year saw the Central coalition bringing in the ambitious National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme, which is being implemented in 200 most backward districts. Questions are, however, being raised on how much it would benefit the ruling party politically.

But that the government failed to tackle the agrarian crisis was evident from the fact that suicides of farmers continued in some states, including Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

The Right to Information Act has also been hailed by the ruling coalition as a major achievement, but the openness and transparency is yet to sink in the bureaucracy, much to the detriment of the common man.

The year saw resignation of External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh in the wake of the Volcker controversy and the Minister of State for Overseas Indian Affairs Jagdish Tytler in the wake of the Nanavati Commission report on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Natwar Singh’s exit resulted in the Prime Minister himself taking on the responsibility of external affairs.

Despite suggestions that Rahul Gandhi is being groomed for the prime ministership sooner or later, this section believes that Manmohan Singh will continue to be in a "very unique position" as "no one can touch him". They however feel that the Prime Minister needs to be "more assertive" and show that he is not only the first among the equals in the Cabinet.