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Tag: Gandhi

  • Narendra Modi Brings Thoughtful, Personal Gifts To Obama

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought gifts for Monday’s state visit with US President Barack Obama.

    Modi personally chose the thoughtful, personal gifts for Obama — keeping in mind the two people the president most admires, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. — including “Gita by Gandhi” in Khadi cover, as well as audio and video clips from King’s 1959 visit to India.

    “The prime minister has brought several gifts. At the personal level, he has brought a special edition of Gita by Gandhi Ji. This is Gandhi Ji’s interpretation of Gita. The book was published many years ago,” said External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin.

    “The prime minister had specifically ordered a special edition of the book and copies of it were specially done up with a certain getup as Khadi on its cover these were prepared in Delhi and were brought and were handed over to the president.”

    “Also, he has given some other personal gifts. He is aware that President Obama has great regard for Martin Luther King and there is a Gandhi link between President Obama, the King and the prime minister, so he (Modi) had looked up and asked All India Radio to provide a recording of Martin Luther King’s speech which he gave in India in 1959 when he visited India. In addition, there are some other memorabilia of Martin Luther King,” he said.

    “There is a photograph of the King at the Rajghat, which the prime minister has framed and given to Obama. There is a small clip which goes back to 1959. The Photos Division was able to track back a video clip of Martin Luther King‘s visit to India. All these were prepared by the prime minister’s Office in advance and presented to President Obama today,” he said.

    “These were personal gifts. Official gifts would be presented tomorrow,” Akbaruddin said.

    The prime minister also generously brought gifts for Obama‘s two daughters, Sasha and Malia, according to the sources.

  • Bharatiya Janata Party Wins Big in India Elections

    Yesterday, the ruling Congress Party in India was dealt a huge blow by losing four state elections in India. The more-liberal Congress Party, which has been the primary ruling power in India since its independence in 1947, lost handily to the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People’s Party). The BJP is an emerging conservative party, with a Hindu-nationalist, self-sufficient platform, which offers an alternative to the liberal social ideologies of the Congress Party.

    The BJP was able to maintain its power and influence in the Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh states, but surprised Indian political pundits with their victories in the western Rajasthan state and Delhi, India’s capital. In Rajasthan, the BJP won 162 of the 200 seats, with Congress only winning 21.

    However, the biggest surprise came with the elections in Delhi. The Congress Party had been the ruling political power in Delhi for the past 15 years. Sunday, however, they lost control of the nation’s capital, winning only 8 of the 70 seats. The BJP party came out as the winning party in Delhi with a total of 31 seats. The surprise, however, was the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man’s Party, which won an unprecedented 28 seats.

    The almost-victory of the AAP comes as such a surprise because the party was founded just one year ago. The AAP was born out of the recent unrest in India due to severe political corruption, surging food prices, and a stagnant economy. “Our democracy has been subservient to political parties governed by caste, religion, money power, muscle power and corruption for too long. People were exhausted with this kind of politics and decided to contest elections themselves,” stated Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of the AAP who defeated Sheila Dikshit, the reigning three-term chief minister and representative of the Congress Party in Delhi.

    The election results comes as a huge blow to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has dominated Indian politics for nearly 70 years. Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born leader of the Congress Party, has conceded the importance of such a vote: “We have to look into the way we took or did not take our message to the people… people are obviously unhappy, otherwise they would not have given such results.” Her current Vice President of India and heir-apparent to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, Rahul Gandhi, has also voiced lessons learned from the trouncing handed to the Congress Party by the BJP: What we need to do as a party is to move ahead of just talking about good governance and move to a paradigm, to a place, where we are actually giving serious space to the common man. I am going to put all my efforts into transforming the organization of the Congress Party.”

    While many political pundits are discussing the impact these state elections will have on the future of Indian governance, research from a Bank of America Merrill Lynch report shows that correlation between state and national elections in India is weak. The report states several reasons as to why the victories of the BJP may not translate to national victories next year. First and foremost, the four states in which the BJP won only represent 13% of the national vote. Secondly, much like elections here in the United States, these state elections are only indications of where the people stand, not firm-indicators of party-allegiance. When national elections roll around next year, people will still vote for individual candidates. Last, the success of the AAP demonstrates that regional parties will still be very influential, meaning coalition governance will still be prevalent despite the successes of the BJP.

    If the Congress Party wants to maintain its control over Indian politics, it only has until 4 months to turn its fortunes around as general elections for the Lok Sabha take place in April.

    [Image via Twitter]