Northeast making big strides under Modi: Assam Guv

(Guwahati, Jan 7, 2022) The Northeast is making giant strides towards development under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and tourism will be a key driver of the region with connectivity and the security situation improving considerably, Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi said on Friday.

Speaking after inaugurating the 9th North East Festival here, he said the region is blessed with enormous tourism resources such as snow-capped mountains, wildlife, cultural diversity and a pollution-free environment.

Mukhi hoped that the pandemic will end soon and the Northeast will become the most attractive destination for investment and tourism in the coming days.

“I am happy to see that various government organisations are coming forward including North East Zone Cultural Centre (NEZCC) to promote culture and potential of the region through the North East Festival,” he said.

He lauded the organisers of the festival for focusing on tourism through networking of tour operators.

“A series of discussions on investments, start-ups, tourism development, river connectivity, agri-market linkages are being organised. This is in sync with Make in Northeast, Start-Up Northeast vision of the prime minister for a vibrant Northeast,” Mukhi said.

“Cuisines of Northeast are very popular and can be a real source of tourism. Weavers and artisans of the region have great talent in terms of quality textile designs and the North East Festival has rightly focused on promoting the designers and weavers of the region,” he said.

Agriculture is the backbone of the Northeast and the process of marketing linkage to agri products is very essential for farmers, the governor said.

“The government of India is focusing extensively on creating backend infrastructure and marketing support to agri and food processing products of the Northeast,” he added.

The three-day festival is being held at a hotel here following the COVID-19 protocols and only double-vaccinated people are being allowed to participate.

The festival, originally scheduled to be held in New Delhi but shifted here due to rising COVID-19 cases in the national capital, is being organised with minimum human presence and broadcast across the world through digital platforms.

In his welcome address, festival organiser Shyamkanu Mahanta said the event is about connecting people and celebrating life, and aims to focus on the cultural diversity and ethnicity of the Northeastern states in a grander way.

“This time we have an interesting array of discussions and sessions on pertinent issues of the Northeastern states. There will be seminars, B2B meets, exhibitions of handloom, handicraft and organic agri horti products, food and cuisines, startup culture, tourism attractions and many more,” he said.

Nani Gopal Mahanta, Adviser to Assam’s Education Department, in his speech described how the Northeast has emerged as one of the most integrated zones of the country after facing neglect for decades.

He also recited the famous poem Axomiya Dekar Ukti of Assam’s literary and cultural great Jyotiprasad Agarwala to describe the multi-diversity of the Northeast.

For India, 2020 will be known as year of internal discovery: PM

(New Delhi, Nov 30, 2020) The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore India’s national character for the entire world to behold and 2020 will be known as a year of internal discovery rather than of external disruption, according to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Across the world, people have expressed wonder at the way in which Indians, whether poor or rich, young or old, rural or urban, have shown the ability to be responsible, disciplined, focused, law-abiding, patient and composed during a crisis of unprecedented proportions, he said.

“Some may call the year 2020 as a year of external disruptions due to the pandemic. But I firmly believe that 2020 will be known, not as a year of external disruption, but as a year of internal discovery, for our society and for our nation,” Modi wrote in an exclusive article in the Manorama Yearbook 2021.

“Adversity not only builds strength but also brings out our true innate character. This global pandemic has brought to the fore India’s national character for the entire world to behold, as a resilient and united nation,” the write-up titled “Aatmanirbhar Bharat: Transforming India” said.

Many Indian pharma companies are working to develop a vaccine against coronavirus.

As on Monday, the number of COVID-19 cases in the country crossed 94 lakh and the recoveries’ figure neared 88,50,000, according to Union health ministry data. The official toll in the morning stood at 1,37,139.

In the article, Modi also said that in the face of trying circumstances, India has not only stayed firm but also helped the world.

“India emerged as a pharmacy to the world, sending life-saving drugs and medicines far and wide, at the same time ensuring no shortage to our own people.

“After the pandemic struck, in no time, our COVID warriors rose to the occasion and led India’s fight from the front. Remarkable efforts on a war-footing made India self-sufficient in PPE production,” the prime minister wrote. 

Countless unsung heroes, from ambulance drivers to pharmacists, from security personnel to small neighbourhood vendors, kept our lives going even during difficult circumstances, while carefully maintaining social distancing, wearing masks and adapting digital payments, he said.

Modi asserted that a slew of reforms across various sectors are strengthening the country’s development trajectory as against earlier reforms that used to be “hostage to political expediencies”.

Highlighting the significance of Aatmanirbhar Bharat, he said it means an India which is more competitive, an India which is more productive and an India which celebrates local talent.

“An Aatmanirbhar Bharat will increase India’s role in global supply chains by attracting more global businesses to India to take full advantage of India’s policy stability, low taxes and skilled human resources,” he said.

Modi also wrote that the COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the ability of technology to be a valuable bridge and from multi-nation summits to multi-national companies, everyone’s work had to go online.

He was of the view that in the coming year, there will be an even greater focus on self-reliance and resilience in technology.

The yearbook is power-packed in 25 sections and has write-ups on post-COVID careers, the cost of COVID-19 on the Indian economy, work from home, Indo-Pak and Sino-India relations and attitude and aptitude among other topics, says chief editor Mammen Mathew.

“Looking back at 2020 we can say that we have come through quarantines and lockdowns by maintaining social distancing, self-masking, sanitising, despite disruptions and confinements in our personal space,” he writes in the editorial.

HarperCollins to publish Modi’s letters to mother goddess

(New Delhi, May 28, 2020) Many letters that Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a young man wrote to mother goddess, whom he addressed as jagat janani, every night on varied topics will be published in a book form in English next month.

HarperCollins India said Letters to Mother, translated from Gujarati by renowned film critic Bhawana Somaaya, will be released as ebook and hardback. These letters have been taken from Modi’s diary, dating back to 1986.

“This is not an attempt at literary writing; the passages featured in this book are reflections of my observations and sometimes unprocessed thoughts, expressed without filter…” a HarperCollins India statement quoted Modi as saying.

“I am not a writer, most of us are not; but everybody seeks expression, and when the urge to unload becomes overpowering there is no option but to take pen and paper, not necessarily to write but to introspect and unravel what is happening within the heart and the head and why,” he said.

As a young man, Modi had got into the habit of writing a letter to jagat janani every night before going to bed. The topics were varied: there were seething sorrows, fleeting joys, lingering memories.

“In Modi’s writings there was the enthusiasm of a youngster and the passion to usher in change. But every few months, he would tear up the pages and consign them to a bonfire. The pages of one diary, dating back to 1986, survived, however. These are now available in English for the very first time,” the statement said.

According to Somaaya, Modi’s strength as a writer is his emotional quotient. “There is a raw intensity, a simmering restlessness which he does not disguise and that is his attraction,” she said.

Modi ‘unmade’ India: Yaswant Sinha in no-holds-barred book

(New Delhi, Dec 22, 2018) GDP numbers are misleading, RBI’s autonomy is in extreme danger and demonetisation is the biggest banking scam, former finance minister Yashwant Sinha claims in his new book.

He also says that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea of self-employment is a “distraction from the more serious issue of unemployment and underemployment”.

Sinha, who has been quite vocal about the government’s policies since the past couple of years, quit the BJP in April. Party leaders have been dismissing his allegations on several issues with BJP chief Amit Shah once asking if people should believe the ministers or those “who did not get jobs”.

According to Sinha, Modi blew a golden opportunity to send the economy soaring to new heights.

“He could have fixed the UPA’s legacy issues and fundamentally raised India from a poor country to a middle-income country, but he squandered the chance,” he says, adding his book demonstrates how “Modi unmade India”.

Though the book India Unmade: How the Modi Government Broke the Economy is a critique of the NDA government’s economic management, Sinha says he has not always been a critic of Modi.

“Nor do I have a personal vendetta against him for not appointing me minister or giving me some other post, as some people incorrectly speculate… In fact, the truth is that I recognised his mettle early on and was one of the first senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders to say he should be made the party’s prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 elections,” he claims.

He has been severely critical of Modi on demonetisation, jobs, GDP figures and Make in India among others policies and programmes.

“The Modi government’s lasting legacy will be the catastrophe that was the demonetisation of high-denomination currency on November 8, 2016,” he argues.

“Demonetisation was a whimsical decision that served no purpose of governance. It did, however, provide Modi with a populist campaign plank of having taken tough decisions to nab the corrupt rich. His decision paid a rich electoral dividend in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. But as far as the constantly shifting governance objectives of demonetisation went, it was a big zero,” he says.

On the second anniversary of demonetisation, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said that demonetisation resulted in increasing the tax base and a higher tax collection (both direct and indirect) for the government, thereby improving its fiscal health. He had also clarified that the real purpose of demonetisation was not the confiscation of cash but to bring it to the formal economy and make the holders pay tax.

On Make in India, Sinha writes, “The malaise of Indian industry during Modi’s tenure is typified by his most famous flagship scheme, Make in India. It is his biggest failure; it is also an unoriginal idea. It is nothing more than a revival of the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council that the UPA set up in 2004, whose first chairman was V Krishnamurthy.”

He also says that the growth rates were seemed to have been recalibrated to make the government’s economic management look good, with an average rate of 7.35 per cent over its first four years.

The jobs Modi mentioned like pakoda sellers, autorickshaw drivers, tea-stall boys and newspaper deliverers are all in the informal sector and are nobody’s idea of an aspirational job, he says.

He terms GDP figures as way below India’s potential. “But then India is the only country in the world that grows at 7.35 per cent, without investment, without industrial growth, without agricultural growth. Just like magic,” he writes in a sarcastic vein.

The GST concept, he says, is good because it is simple and will lead to lower prices because there won’t be any tax on tax; there’ll be tax set-offs at every stage; and it will widen the tax net for transactions.

“It is a better tax, but Modi-Jaitley botched it up at its very beginning. That GST has been tweaked 200 times already and over 400 notifications and 100 circulars and FAQs have been issued since its launch is standing testimony to the folly of the Modi-Jaitley team.”

Sinha says that UPA’s management of the economy was also flawed.

“When the global financial crisis hit us, the (UPA) government decided to focus on increasing consumption demand, and it began reducing or even eliminating some excise duties.

“This, along with the debt waiver and MNREGA, was meant to put money in people’s pockets to encourage consumption demand. Yet all these welfare measures hardly encouraged productive activity and did not increase investment,” he writes.

The Modi government, according to him, had everything going for it on all fronts; it had the kind of opportunity few governments have had in independent India’s history, yet it squandered its mandate.

“In summation, the Modi government is just about event management. He is the best in creating false impressions. In the process, Modi has given India its ‘lost half-decade’. Elect him again and by 2024 it will be a lost decade,” he warns.

The book, published by Juggernaut, is co-authored by journalist Aditya Sinha.

So, why is the need for the book?

“… Over the last fifty-five months, the Modi government has dished out a stunning continuum of untruths and boasts about its economic management, performance and accomplishments. It thus becomes essential to speak truth to power, and so it is my job that this book be a statement of fact.”

Modi more of an EM than a PM: Aiyar

(New Delhi, Jun 7, 2015) Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar sees Narendra Modi more as an EM, or events manager, than a PM and says the best thing about the one year of his government is that “there are only four years left” and the countdown to the end of his achhe din has begun.

“Since the NDA government assumed power, there has been dissatisfaction among people, particularly farmers,” he says.

He claims that every indicator of economic growth is either staggering or falling.

“The only aspect of the Indian economy that has risen is the Sensex. Every indicator is either staggering or falling except where international conditions have been exceptionally helpful like declining trend in oil prices and revival in the global economy,” Aiyar, whose stint in the Rajya Sabha will end next year, told PTI.

Aiyar’s new book, Achhe Din? Ha! Ha!!, a collection of his articles on various topics, including the government’s performance and the Congress, will be released this week by Palimpsest.

In the foreword, he writes, “I believe his (Modi’s) penchant for self-praise and self-publicity will redound on him.

“People will start asking whether this is a PM or an EM – an events manager. As action trails far behind rhetoric, his credibility has already started its downward spiral.

“The momentum will get accelerated as the gap widens between his flair for clever lines and his inability to match words with delivery.”

Aiyar, however, accepts that he “went hopelessly wrong in thinking he (Modi) could not possibly win.

“He did get the mandate to run the country. But as I have watched him from the sidelines, I persist with the view that he has not risen to the occasion and that the country would be well-advised to turn him down at the next opportunity.”

He also sees the prospects of a newly-minted Congress only improving.

“We are now consolidating ourselves before we start preparing for the 2019 elections. The best thing about the Modi government is that there are only four years left. We will start positioning ourselves in 2017 to take on Modi,” the former Union panchayati raj minister says.

On Rahul Gandhi’s sabbatical, he says it was argued that it was eccentric, at best, and thoroughly irresponsible, at worst, for the Congress vice president to vanish just as the

Land Acquisition Ordinance was capturing national attention but it was “not as unusual as is being made out”.

“The confidence with which Rahul spoke at the April 19 kisan rally, and the attentiveness with which he was heard, demonstrated that his absence notwithstanding, the Congress, under the leadership of his mother, had built up the momentum for Rahul’s homecoming to be a memorable occasion,” he writes.

Aiyar terms as the “worst of a coalition of opposites” the BJP-PDP government in Jammu and Kashmir where the partners are “indulging in what can only be described as competitive communalism”.

He is not too optimistic of another Rajya Sabha term, going by the numbers the Congress has.

“But, I will continue to make myself available to the party. I also have a number of writing assignments. I am doing a major book on panchayati raj and also an updated version of my book on Rajiv Gandhi on the occasion of his 25th death anniversary which falls next year.

“Besides I have been asked by a major publisher to pen my autobiography. I have a tentative title in my mind – Leaf in the Wind: The autobiography of an unsuccessful politician,” he says.

Kejriwal a ‘small single city leader’: Modi

(New Delhi, Mar 15, 2015) AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal may have inflicted a massive defeat on BJP in Delhi Assembly polls last month, but months earlier Prime Minister Narendra Modi saw him as a “small single city leader” not even worth “my time to ignore”.

These comments were made by Modi to former BBC journalist Lance Price in July last year explaining his decision not to name Kejriwal during the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections.

Price, who spoke to Modi four times during that period, recounts Modi’s responses on a variety of issues in his new book The Modi Effect: Inside Narendra Modi’s Campaign to Transform India.

It makes a mention of the contest between Modi and Kejriwal for the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat. After Kejriwal announced his candidature and promised a ‘political earthquake’, Modi decided to keep mum.

When asked about it, he told Price, “My silence is my strength. You should know that in the grand scheme of things, Kejriwal was nothing but a small single city leader. He was getting far more coverage than he deserved as compared to other more established Opposition party leaders. So why spend time even ignoring someone. It was, therefore, not even worth my time to ignore Kejriwal.

“Kejriwal was elevated by select group of vested media interests fuelled by the Congress to target Narendra Modi and try and save the Congress. Keep in mind he was not even a

Member of Parliament; had lasted only 49 days as CM and had won less than one per cent of the national vote.”

Kejriwal lost to Modi in Varanasi but led AAP to a resounding victory clinching 67 seats in the 70-member Delhi Assembly. BJP won the remaining three seats while Congress drew a blank.

Modi recounted that while all eyes were on the Lok Sabha results on May 16 last year, he was alone in his room meditating with no television on and took telephone calls only after 12 noon.

“In the morning when the counting was going on, I was totally alone and had no TV on. I was finishing off my own spiritual activities and enjoying my meditation time after the grueling elections,” the Prime Minister says.

On the day of counting, he says he “started taking calls only from 12 noon and the first call on the results was from BJP president Rajnath Singh telling me that it was a foregone conclusion that we would sweep the polls”.

This and several other titbits about Modi, his life – both personal and political – find mention in the book by Price, former media advisor to the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Published in India by Hachette, the book is based on the author’s interviews with the prime minister, his Cabinet colleagues like Piyush Goyal, Prakash Javadekar and Smriti Irani and his team of advisers and analysts.

On the poll campaign, Modi said, “Past elections have shown that the Indian culture is such that people have tremendous faith and trust in the individual. People want clarity about who the leading person will be and I was seeing this question being asked in every meeting I attended and was hearing vociferous chants of ‘give us a trusted name, not a party name’.”

Modi said, “in all corners of the country, they believed Modi was the only hope and wanted to see him win”.

The book also talks about BJP’s relationship with big corporate donors.

“There was a lot of writing that we were using private aircraft from the corporates. Please keep in mind that if necessary I will also hire cycles to run the campaign,” Modi said.

“We needed aircraft to criss-cross the country to manage a campaign of this scale and handle the diversity in India. Our party paid for every bit of the expenses that were incurred in leasing anything that we used,” he added.

According to Modi, a key feature of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections was “indeed the many independent institutions that backed us all across the nation.”

He also mentions about people like yoga guru Ramdev and legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar besides the Art of Living foundation who wanted to “participate in a mass movement” to “make a difference”.

Modi said that since his win in the Gujarat elections in 2012, he was clear that “I would be one of the (Prime Ministerial) candidates under consideration”.

“But I never really thought about it or ever tried to lobby within the party to be nominated as the prime ministerial candidate. Nor was I really curious as to whether I or someone else would be nominated,” he says.

He then goes on to describe how he formulated a plan on giving interviews before the elections.

“I decided that I would not be available to the media. I did this intentionally to create a vacuum and get attention because of the vacuum,” says Modi.

Modi went in a full-fledged manner to the national media only towards the end of campaigning, first to the Hindi channels and then to the English.

“What this did was to allow me to customize my message all the time and not to spill all the beans at once and keep the curiosity of people alive in terms of what would I say next,” he says.

According to Price, Modi had agreed to give him “unprecedented access to help me analyse the campaign” that had brought him to power.

Modi left no one in doubt that he was a firm believer in God and fate.

“Basically, we have a belief in our religion, Maro Bhagya Vidhata, which means I am putting myself at the disposition for what God has in store for me. If this is the case, why be afraid?,” he said going on to add, “I have never worn a bullet-proof jacket”.

The 2002 post-Godhra riots is one subject that Modi refused to discuss with the author.

“Regarding Godhra, I have said enough and you can read the reports and the Supreme Court judgement for yourself,” he told Price.

On the issue of US having denied him visa since 2005, the Prime Minister said, “Regarding the visa issue, it has never bothered me. I really see these as non-issues and do not let them impact on me or my ego.”

After he assumed the Prime Minister’s post, Modi made a bilateral visit to the US in September at the invitation of President Barack Obama who too visited India as the Chief Guest of the Republic Day celebrations.

On LS poll result day, Modi saw no TV, took calls after noon

(New Delhi, Mar 15, 2015) On the morning of May 16, 2014, when counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections was on, Narendra Modi was alone in his room meditating with no television on and took telephone calls only after 12 noon.

“In the morning when the counting was going on, I was totally alone and had no TV on. I was finishing off my own spiritual activities and enjoying my meditation time after the grueling elections,” the Prime Minister says.

On the day of counting, he says he “started taking calls only from 12 noon and the first call on the results was from BJP president Rajnath Singh telling me that it was a foregone conclusion that we would sweep the polls”.

This and several other titbits about Modi, his life – both personal and political – and the poll campaign find mention in a new book The Modi Effect: Inside Narendra Modi’s Campaign to Transform India by Lance Price, former media advisor to the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Published in India by Hachette, the book is based on the author’s interviews with the prime minister, his Cabinet colleagues like Piyush Goyal, Prakash Javadekar and Smriti Irani and his team of advisers and analysts.

The book also talks about BJP’s relationship with big corporate donors.

“There was a lot of writing that we were using private aircraft from the corporates. Please keep in mind that if necessary I will also hire cycles to run the campaign,” Modi says.

“We needed aircraft to criss-cross the country to manage a campaign of this scale and handle the diversity in India. Our party paid for every bit of the expenses that were incurred in leasing anything that we used,” he adds.

According to Modi, a key feature of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections was “indeed the many independent institutions that backed us all across the nation.”

He also mentions about people like yoga guru Ramdev and legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar besides the Art of Living foundation who wanted to “participate in a mass movement” to “make a difference”.

Modi says that since his win in the Gujarat elections in 2012, he was clear that “I would be one of the (Prime Ministerial) candidates under consideration”.

“But I never really thought about it or ever tried to lobby within the party to be nominated as the prime ministerial candidate. Nor was I really curious as to whether I or someone else would be nominated,” he says.

He then goes on to describe how he formulated a plan on giving interviews before the elections.

“I decided that I would not be available to the media. I did this intentionally to create a vacuum and get attention because of the vacuum,” says Modi.

Modi went in a full-fledged manner to the national media only towards the end of campaigning, first to the Hindi channels and then to the English.

“What this did was to allow me to customize my message all the time and not to spill all the beans at once and keep the curiosity of people alive in terms of what would I say next,” he says.

According to Price, Modi had agreed to give him “unprecedented access to help me analyse the campaign” that had brought him to power.

“I met Modi four times for around an hour, each time – sometimes longer. He spoke almost always in very good English and gave me many insights into the campaign and his thinking which I have included in the book,” Price told PTI.

The book also mentions the contest between Modi and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal in Varanasi. However, after Kejriwal announced his candidature and promised a ‘political earthquake’, Modi decided to keep mum.

When asked about it, he told Price, “My silence is my strength. You should know that in the grand scheme of things, Kejriwal was nothing but a small single city leader. He was getting far more coverage than he deserved as compared to other more established Opposition party leaders. So why spend time even ignoring someone?”

Godhra is one subject that Modi refused to discuss with the author.

“Regarding Godhra, I have said enough and you can read the reports and the Supreme Court judgement for yourself,” he told Price.

According to the author, Modi had his own opinion about what the book ought to contain.

“The global population should know how we smoothly and effectively managed the world’s largest election process and how effectively we have evolved the election process since 1952,” the writer quotes Modi as telling him.

The Emergency, according to Modi, was one of the best experiences that he had and the period molded him and made him more of a democrat.

“I was lucky to work with socialist leaders. I was lucky to work with Islamic organisations, with liberal organisations – so many people,” Price quotes Modi as saying.

“That period was a good period to mould me. Because of that and the democratic values that I found, it became part of my DNA. Yes, that was one of the best experiences that I had. I became aware; I understood the Constitution, I understood the rights, because before that I was living in a different world,” the Prime Minister says.

“Honestly, I do not feel I am the PM even today,” he told Price during a meeting last July. “Temperamentally, I am a very detached person and it has become increasingly so over the past years,” he says.

Modi can even teach ‘Madison Avenue’ packaging skills: Ramesh

(New Delhi, Feb 24, 2015) Congress MP Jairam Ramesh has dubbed Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a master of repackaging, marketing and branding who can even “teach” such skills to Madison Avenue.

Accusing the NDA government of “hijacking” several of the UPA dispensation’s schemes, he says it has done such “political branding and repackaging very aggressively”.

Terming Modi as the ‘guru of Madison Avenue’ when it comes to packaging, marketing and branding are concerned, the Rajya Sabha MP says the Prime Minister can teach such skills to “Madison Avenue”.

Though basically a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, the term ‘Madison Avenue’ is often used metonymically for advertising.

Ramesh says a lot of UPA government’s programmes got repackaged.

“The Nirmal Bharat Abhiyaan became Swachh Bharat. The Mission Clean Ganga – Nirmal Dhara and Aviral Dhara – became Namami Gange,” he says.

“We started Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan to end open defecation in India in 10 years time long before Mr Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan. Many people got upset when I said toilets are more important than temples.

“Sixty per cent of Indian women are defecating in the open. This is a health issue, a social issue, a security issue and a dignity issue. There can be Swachh Bharat but if there is open defecation, they don’t go together,” he says.

Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi through Raghu Rai’s lens

(New Delhi, Jun 22, 2014) “The one who did not speak a word, his silence was deafening and the other who spoke much and it was deafening,” photographer Raghu Rai says of Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi as he compares their personalities by using a series of photographs in his new book.

The Tale of Two, An Outgoing and An Incoming, Prime Minister, a self-published work (AuthorsUpFront), brings together images of contrast of Singh and Modi in public and their positions in their parties.

According to Rai, since a prime minister is the supreme leader of a nation, there is “no room for us to look for the detractors who might have been the cause of his failure”.

He says in Singh’s case, his “failure to give us the kind of government we wanted might have been because of the high command’s final decision or the scams caused, but the sole responsibility falls upon the prime minister of the day”.

Rai says similarly when Narendra Modi takes over, “his performance as prime minister will have to be judged by his actions and decisions in performing his rajdharma”.

The veteran photograph themed his book on two sessions of Congress and BJP held in the capital in January.

“It was after 25 long years, I found the courage to photograph once again the sessions of two leading political parties during election season, the Congress and the BJP,” he says of the initiative.

“Though it was the month of January, the weather outside was pleasant but during those four hours I spent inside, there was a strange kind of stuffiness in the arenas… A strange kind of sycophancy and personality cult is entrenched in both the parties; as if the other members are lesser beings who seem entirely accepting of their lowly status,” he writes.

On January 17, Rai spent four hours at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session held at Talkatora stadium in the capital and photographed the mood with a special focus on the then Prime Minister Singh.

The photographs used in the book were taken between 9.30 AM and 1.30 PM on that day. Next day when Rai went through the pictures on his computer, he says he was “pained by what I saw”.

“Earlier on I have photographed and experienced in various political sessions of leading parties, relationships, manipulations, sycophancy and power play. But the prime minister of the day used to be the focus of attention and interest and everyone in the party looked up to him for an interaction or even a smile,” he writes.

“In Mr Singh’s case, he walks in behind Sonia Gandhi at 10.30 AM, and sits a few feet away looking lonely and isolated. There is only a tinge of a reluctant smile on his face when he stands between Sonia and Rahul Gandhi sharing a big garland meant for the trio,” Rai writes.

He says that every moment he photographed Singh, there was the “same fixed expression of gloom on his face, as if he was living a nightmare”.

According to Rai, the other sad part was, “in those few hours that I was there at the Congress session, nobody came to discuss or share anything with him as if he did not matter anymore. He looked isolated, ignored and deserted”.

Rai was then at the BJP’s National Council meeting at Ramlila Grounds on January 19 again from 9.30 AM to 1.30 PM.

“All senior leaders of BJP were presiding under larger-than-life headshots of Narendra Modi which formed the backdrop of the main stage… Each of these leaders got up to speak, Modi’s image looking out over their heads. It was clear that Modi was to be the projection of the day.

“Then Modi stood up to speak. A newly programmed, well-designed, well-worded campaign declamation came pouring out of him with proper emotional punctuations. The audience listened spellbound. He projected himself as a comprehensive and well-aware leader of a party that was missing ever since Vajpayee withdrew from active political life,” Rai recalls.

“Now that he takes over as the new prime minister, apart from his hardcore critics, many in India have great hopes of him taking the country towards good governance,” he says.

Post-Godhra, Vajpayee was not keen on Kalam’s Gujarat visit: Book

(New Delhi, June 30, 2012) In the aftermath of the 2002 riots in Gujarat, the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee appeared to be not keen on President APJ Abdul Kalam’s official visit to the state, according to a book.

Giving an inkling of what the BJP stalwart thought about his visit in his soon-to-be-released book Turning Points, Kalam said there were also suggestions at the ministry and bureaucratic level against his trip to Gujarat after the post-Godhra riots in which 1,200 people were killed, most of them Muslims.

The former President recalls he decided to go to Gujarat as “my mission was not to look at what had happened, not to look at what was happening, but to focus on what should be done”.

But at the ministry and bureaucratic level, it was suggested that he should not venture into Gujarat at that point of time.

“One of the main reasons was political. However, I made up my mind that I would go and preparations were in full swing at Rashtrapati Bhavan for my first visit as president,” he wrote.

“The prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, asked me only one question, ‘Do you consider going to Gujarat at this time essential?’

“I told the PM, ‘I consider it an important duty so that I can be of some use to remove the pain, and also accelerate the relief activities, and bring about a unity of minds, which is my mission, as I stressed in my address during the swearing-in ceremony.”

He recollects that many apprehensions were expressed, among them that his visit might be boycotted by Chief Minister Narendra Modi, that he would receive a cold reception and that there would be protests from many sides.

“But, to my great surprise when I landed at Gandhinagar, not only the chief minister, but his entire Cabinet and a large number of legislators, officials and members of the public were present at the airport.”

“I visited 12 areas – three relief camps and nine riot-hit locations where the losses had been high. Narendra Modi, the chief minister, was with me throughout the visit. In one way, this helped me, as wherever I went, I received petitions and complaints and as he was with me I was able to suggest to him that action be taken as quickly as possible.”

Recalling an incident during one of his visits to a relief camp, Kalam writes, “A six-year-old boy came up to me, held both my hands and said, ‘Rashtrapatiji, I want my mother and father.’ I was speechless. There itself, I held a quick meeting with the district collector. The chief minister also assured me that the boy’s education and welfare would be taken care of by the government.”

“While I was in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, people from all sections of society wished to talk to me and express their problems and views personally. In one such gathering, nearly 2,000 citizens of Ahmedabad surrounded me. The interaction was in Gujarati and a friend of mine translated. I was asked about fifty questions and received 150 petitions.

“My visit to two important places in Ahmedabad was indeed significant, particularly in the light of the riots. I called on Pramukh Swamiji Maharaj at Akshardham where he welcomed me. I discussed with His Holiness the mission of achieving unity of minds and bringing a healing touch to Gujarat, which has given to the nation great human beings like Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Vikram Sarabhai.”

Kalam also visited Sabarmati Ashram, where he met many ashramites and saw the agony writ large on their faces, even as they mechanically carried out their normal chores.

“I witnessed similar sentiments at Akshardham as well. As I was wondering why, I realised that both these institutions, by virtue of their inherent love and respect of human beings and their spiritual environment, work to bring happiness, peace and progress to society and could therefore not accept a situation of inflicting avoidable pain.

“I say this because in our land, with its heritage of a highly evolved civilization and where great men were born and stood tall as role models for the entire world, communal riots with their attendant tragedy are an aberration that should never happen.”

After he finished his two-day tour, the media wanted a message from him.

“I expressed my thoughts through a statement in which I urged the need for an intensified movement to completely eliminate communal and other forms of strife and bring about unity of minds.”