Tag: BJP

Popular Essays

Chowkidar? Protecting Who from Whom?

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

Chowkidars, as we understand, are watchmen, whose services are hired by people who need protection. And, of course, different people need protection for different reasons. But what kind of protection must the head of the country provide, and to who, and from whom? The Constitution of India proclaims that we, the people of India, have solemnly constituted ourselves into a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic Republic. So clearly, the Constitutional imperative is for those in governance to protect people from want, starvation, violations of bodily integrity, targeting as a community, discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, sex, sexual orientation, ableism, ageism, or any other axis, violation of freedom of speech and expression, among other things.

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Popular Essays

What made ‘Goemkarponn’ so Manoeuvrable?

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

 

From the get go, there was no sign of Goem, Goemkar, Goemkarponn at all. Not even when the 2017 Goa Legislative Assembly election results were beginning to trickle in. One would have thought that small is beautiful and manageable and that the smallness of Goem affords a unique opportunity to better and more expeditiously manage.  But despite EVM machines as in other states, which should have seen the results pouring in rather than trickling in, Goa’s results took a longer time than those of UP with ten times the number of seats.  Indeed Goa’s counting in relation to that of the rest of India’s states that went to the polls was ajeeb (strange).

 

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Popular Essays

Bread and Circuses

By AMITA KANEKAR

 

902 buses were reportedly organised by the BJP to ferry people from distant villages to Panjim for Manohar Parrikar’s birthday party, resulting in a city that was completely choked with traffic, amidst BJP cheers about the popularity of their leader. Behind the cheers though, what was obvious and heartening was that the arrangements of free transport, snacks, and other goodies were motivated by the obvious fear that nobody would turn up for the spectacle otherwise; this fear is a compliment to Goans’ good sense, even if this good sense did not extend to refusing the all-paid-for circus.

 

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