The term freebie is a bad word in India. Pejorative connotation. Its practice gathers momentum close to elections. India is always in election mode, either in federal states or General elections across the country. The freebies as an integral part of Indian politics can destroy the basic foundation of society and the nation. One wonders whether similar unethical practices prevail in western democracies. Sri Lanka is the latest example for India for taking lessons. SL govt showered its generosity on its citizens by reducing taxes and providing free goods and services to please them by securing votes in the electoral battles. This led to collapse of its GDP, hitting the heavily indebted economy. Negative economic growth. In India, things are far worse. Allurements are offered before and during the elections, liberally distributing currency notes tucked inside saris, sewing machines, bicycles, free electricity, water, TV sets, laptops, further enhancing the divide between the rich and poor. Massive burden on public exchequer. A fraud on tax payers. Worse still, loan waivers, fiscal profligacy, wasteful expenditure on procuring VIP-5 star planes equipped with missiles for three VVIPs have debilitating impact resulting in wonky priorities. Ministers and other VVIPs enjoy privileges in the form of rent-free bungalows, free electricity, water, costly cars, unlimited fuels, free air and rail travels with attendants. All out of taxpayers funds. Insensitive, unfazed, shameless dimwits and their chatukaars. Ministers, MPs, and MLAs, decide their salaries and massive allowances. Top judges select themselves. A unique practice in India and nowhere else. One must understand that such inhibited freebies add a burden to the macro-economically unstable foundation of our economy. Chief election commission is not bothered about unfair practices during elections. Flagrant violations of its orders. C&AG remains toothless, even gumless watchmen of public expenditure. Both are extended arms of the ruling dispensation. Legislative assemblies are not interested in reforms due to vested interests. Judiciary is scared of entering into direct confrontation with the political class. Why can't it have courage to declare freebies as bribery and lays down rules to punish both the bribe-givers and bribe takers?
A K Saxena ( A former civil servant)
Not just a Vote Katwa party
After the success in Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party is eyeing Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. The leaders of the party are engaged in presenting AAP as a better option in these states by giving examples of Delhi and Punjab. Elections in Gujarat and HP are scheduled by year end. The Congress party seems to be suffering the most due to AAP's growing stature. Things started changing in AAP's favour in Gujarat in February 2021, when it tasted its first major success -- in the Surat municipal polls. AAP now projects itself to be an alternative to both the BJP and the Congress in the state. Initially, the BJP must have felt that AAP’s emergence will indirectly benefit them as it would prove to be a Vote Katwa party thus harming the prospects of Cong. But BJP cannot dismiss AAP as just a Vote Katwa party. Recently, AAP also performed well in Madhya Pradesh civic polls.
Yogesh Gupta

Can Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar be the prime ministerial candidate of the opposition in 2024? Will the opposition strategy to take Nitish Kumar forward get the support of the Congress party? Will the fight of 2024 be Modi vs. Nitish? All such questions have arisen. After taking oath as the Chief Minister of Bihar for the eighth time, the speculation about the future of Nitish Kumar has become hot. The way Nitish Kumar has built his image as a clean and tough leader; it sets him apart from many other leaders. Not only this, his experience of being the Chief Minister for the longest time and handling various ministries in the Union Cabinet for years is also giving a big base to his personality.
Awantika Tripathi

Recently there has been a lot of controversy over the freebies being provided by political parties or the promises of freebies to garner votes. It is argued that the promise of freebies for the sake of votes is not only unfair; it will also ruin the economy. What is very interesting is that even the beneficiaries of the various welfare schemes do not support the idea of freebies. But the government cannot end freebies for the fear of losing votes. So it is a political issue. In the interest of the country, the government must end freebies but it cannot do so for the fear of losing votes.
Raj Shukla

I can't add more to Ritika Khare's views on India's foreign policy. I would say India by staying neutral or silent in the present scenario has created more problems or an atmosphere of mistrust by Russia, the USA, West Europe UK, etc that's why the Chinese are on our head, our and Chinese forces are head to head since 2020 on the border, Chinese have occupied so many disputed (between India & China) territories since then, the international community and big 5 too are just mute spectators. Chinese and Americans will never come into direct conflict as both are dependent on Taiwan which is the biggest exporter of Computer chips, i.e. both have commercial interests there. It seems there are more chances of problems between India China or India Pakistan in time to come. Chinese has since killed the Indian economy through its heavy exports to India & heavy trade deficit.
Harish Kumar

With due regard to the Chairs of both Houses of Parliament, it has been seen that they advise the speakers of the parties to adhere to the time limit allotted and conclude .This time limit ranges from one minute to thirty minutes (estimated) depending upon the strength of the party in House and agreed upon by the paries in the meetings taken on the issue. It is incomprehensible for a common man to understand as to how he/she will cover the symptoms and solution of the problem within one or two minutes. It is also observed that speakers from big parties with more time at their disposal, speak more on irrelevant things i.e. eulogising their party and less on the problem and its solution. However, the speaker from smaller parties suffer from double whammy of established Parliamentary procedure, first lesser time to speak and second frequent warning from the Chair to conclude the speech. Even then, with these constraints,they convincingly convey the message to the government by touching upon the root cause of the problem,its impact on the common man and suggestions to tackle the problem.This discrimination in allotment of time is unjustified. The debate time must be increased sufficiently to adjust all the parties on equal footing. Not more than two speakers from a party should be allowed to speak. Minimum and maximum time limit should be fixed for speakers of the parties.Fixation of Maximum time to speak and ignoring entitlement of minimum time is problematic. Minimum time say 30 minutes, will address this problem to some extent.
R K Thakur

The increasing global tension on account of the Russia-Ukraine conflict led to rise in the economic and other problems the world over. The world appeared on the brink of World War. The war in Ukraine is still continuing and meanwhile, US speaker, Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan increased tension. This is the time for the test of India’s foreign policy. India has strategic, trade and cultural relations with the US, Europe as well as Russia. India has long prided itself on its strategically independent or non-aligned foreign policy. But the 2022 Russian-Ukrainian War put India under pressure. But in that difficult situation, India did not allow its relations to deteriorate with either Russia or the West by maintaining neutrality and refusing to take sides. India must now be keenly watching the developments in Taiwan as escalation of the situation will lead to destabilization of peace in the entire region.
Ritika Khare

One of the first announcements by the Prime Minister in 2014 was his emphasis on transparency and accountability as essential for good governance. As eight years have elapsed since then, it would be desirable if the Prime Minister's Office commissions a thorough review of the measures put in place by the various Ministers for creating a transparent and accountable system within their Ministries and an analysis of what has been actually achieved in furthering the objective of the Prime Minister in this regard. Based on actual experience of many citizens, regrettably, seriousness is lacking and many important suggestions made to them by sincere members of the public remain even unacknowledged, let alone acted upon or, if not actionable, informing them about the same.
N Ramu

The three pillars of the economy namely new investment, investor sentiment, and consumer sentiment are going from bad to worse day by day. It seems India is entering a worse stage than 1991 if consumer's purchasing power and depleting foreign exchange reserves are taken into account in true spirits. The dispensation must fix this problem through RBI and other agencies guidance before it is too late. One way is to give chance to those who are holding cash as black money into banks, no questions asked for 6 months or one year, this way money will be in circulation legally, unless GoI has better options.
Harish Kumar

The Supreme Court has ratified and upheld all the clauses of Prevention of Money Laundering Act -PMLA which is as it should be as economic offences should be treated on par with treason. However, what is intriguing is that though it is named as the prevention of money laundering act, it has not been able to do that at all. Whatever action-raid, search, seizure, arrest, investigation, or trial are taking place after the event. The government will do well to address this issue-prevention. For a start, why not consider the following: 1. make it cumbersome and difficult to hoard so much cash by withdrawing 2000 and 500 rupee notes over a period of time and limit currency to 100 rupee notes. By restricting cash supply people will be forced to resort to bank transactions. 2. Put an expiry date-say three years on currency notes which will force hoarders to come to a bank sooner or later. These suggestions may sound simplistic but are surely worth a try rather than a protracted trial after the event and poor record of convictions. Will netas, babus, and businessmen -the largest perpetrators and beneficiaries of money laundering- bite the bullet?
Raghavan

Never, in the past ,have I seen India more divided against itself, than at present. Paradigm shift is taking place in the collective ethos of the country .
Sample some disturbing trends.
Increasing Hindu-muslim animosity, arrogance of power by different political parties and their lapdogs, no rule of law, communal harmony descending into violence,religeous polarisation, failure of governance, widening poor-rich divide, decision-making in collusion with big industrial houses despite conflicts of interests, failure of intelligence in preventing terror attacks. and identifying terror modules etc.The list is illustrative, not comprehensive.
Can we call ourselves proud indians in such circumstances?
A K Saxena (A former civil servant)