The CAA Mystery
The Narendra Modi government’s second term so far has seen a new protest each year. If it’s the farmers this year, last year was the anti-CAA and NRC protest, with the usual suspects supporting and opposing the cause in both cases. But what is interesting is that after all the uproar, the rules for CAA still have to be framed. And, according to sources, this will definitely not happen over the next few months, not with the Assam elections round the corner. Which makes you wonder, why go through the hassle of a constitutional amendment (when a simple executive order would have done the needful), if you were not serious about the implementation? In fact the one reason why the CAA was not brought in during the government’s first term was because it wasn’t sure how it would play out during the 2019 general elections. Anyway, watch this space.
The Roaring Twenties
Jayant Sinha’s article referring to this Budget as a “booster rocket” for the economy that will set the economy on a path of non inflationary growth has created quite a buzz. The phrase caught on, with sundry BJP spokespersons echoing this line on TV debates. Jayant himself was in demand on various channels, trying to explain the finer points of Sitharaman’s budget. Given the fact that his father and rebel ex-BJP leader has recently announced an exile from social media, makes one wonder if Jayant’s path for a comeback has been cleared.
The Awkward Question
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra got a lot of kudos from the bhakts on Twitter when he asked during a TV program—why didn’t Rihanna tweet in 1984? The reference of course was to the anti Sikh riots that took place soon after Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Only, and again, this too happened on social media when someone pointed out that Rihanna was born in 1988 while Twitter started in 2006. Clearly Twitter is the new PRIME TIME debate.
Andar Ki Baat Hai
After the uproar over singer Rihanna and Greta Thunberg’s tweets saw a very carefully collaborated choreographed response on social media that had a spate of celebrities tweeting against the comments as an attack on India’s sovereignty by interfering in the “internal matters” of a country, there is a joke doing the rounds at the farmers’ protests, “yeh andar ki baat hai”, a take-off from a popular underwear advertisement.