LK Advani’s Blog

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A remarkable piece of sandalwood carving on display at our Prithviraj Road residence is of Shri Krishna administering Geetagnyan to Arjuna at Kurukshetra, and in that process giving him a darshan of His Vishwaroop.

 What is even more significant about this carving is the fact that the artist, hailing from Chikmangloor (Karnataka), has depicted on the back side of this excellent Vishwaroop carving not only several other scenes from the Mahabharata, like Draupadi Cheer Haran, and Bhishma Pitamah on his bed of arrows, sermonizing to the Pandavas, but also all    the Dashavataras, from Matsyavatara andKurmavatara to Krishna and Kalki.

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Smt. Indira Gandhi has been an eminent Prime Minister of the country under whom in 1971 the country registered a decisive victory over Pakistan, a victory which led to the vivisection of Pakistan, and the birth of a new state, Bangladesh. Talking about the balance-sheets of different Prime Ministers in a blog some time back I wrote that while the creation of Bangladesh was a big plus point in Smt. Gandhi’s record the blatant abuse of Emergency powers that took place during 1975-77 brought the country’s greatest achievement since independence, namely Democracy, to the brink of annihilation. Smt. Gandhi’s full balance-sheet thus is not very flattering.

I am reminded of this by the latest issue of TIME (June 10, 2013) which carries as its cover story President Obama’s agonizing dilemma about what to do with U.S.A.’s notorious military Click to Read More

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As a schoolboy I was a regular student who rarely missed classes. But I do remember having once bunked school just to watch a Ranji Trophy cricket match in which to the best of my recollection either Vijay Hazare or Vinoo Mankad was playing.

I have been fond of cricket since then. Those days there was no television; so, cricket lovers could enjoy important matches played elsewhere only by listening to the commentary on AIR. I recall a BBC interview with me some years back in which the interviewer was discussing with me my non-political interests like films, books and cricket, in which at one point I tried to imitate a cricket commentary by the outstanding commentator of that era, AFS Talyarkhan.

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A friend has sent me last week an extraordinary book about the Internet, in fact, one of the best books I have read in recent years. The book is titled “The New Digital Age”. The comments made on this book include one by Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of U.K. in which he says:

This is a book that defines both the nature of the new world which the internet is creating, and its challenges. It describes a technological revolution in the making. How we navigate it is a challenge for countries, communities and citizens. There are no two people better equipped to explain what it means than Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen.

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I feel sorry that we have lost in Karnataka. But I am not surprised. The surprise would have been if we had won.

As it is, I think the Karnataka results have a profound lesson for the BJP. In a way it has a lesson also for the Congress. The common lesson for both of us is : let’s not take the common man for granted. He himself may occasionally deviate from the norms of ethical conduct, but he does feel extremely angry when he sees those at the helm of national affairs behaving immorally. This is the principal reason why there is such intense allergy towards politicians generally nowadays.

If corruption provokes indignation in Bangalore, why would it not cause the same feeling in New Delhi?

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I was in school when I had first read the famous fairy tale by Hans Anderson titled “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. 

Anderson’s story was about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes which would be exceptionally beautiful and yet have the remarkable quality of being invisible to any one unpardonably stupid or then, incompetent for his office.

Listening to the two weavers, who were actually swindlers, the emperor who was always fond of good and expensive clothes thought “If I were to be dressed in a suit made of this cloth, I would be able to find out which men in my empire were unfit for their places and I would also be able to distinguish the clever ones from the Click to Read More

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In its last 66 years of independence, India has had as many as fourteen Prime Ministers, six of whom have lasted less than one year each. Out of the remaining eight, two ruled the country for more than fifteen years each. These were Pandit Nehru (17 years) and Smt. Indira Gandhi (16 years).

There have been four Prime Ministers whose tenure has lasted for five years or more.  These have been Dr. Manmohan Singh (9 years), Atal Bihari Vajpayee (6 years), P.V. Narasimha Rao and Rajiv Gandhi (5 years each).

Morarji Desai ruled the country for Click to Read More

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Earlier this month I had written a blog captioned “White Paper on Black Money  notwithstanding, not a single paisa has been recovered”

This blog had highlighted how the BJP’s sustained campaign against black money had forced the UPA Government to present a White Paper on the issue. This White Paper rightly affirmed that success of the country’s “inclusive development strategy critically depends on the capacity of our society to root out the evil of corruption and black money from its very foundations.”

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In May 2012, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, then Finance Minister presented to Parliament a White Paper on Black Money. In this White Paper, the UPA Government promised to curb generation of Black Money in the country, its illicit transfer to tax havens overseas and to take effective measures to secure the repatriation of all this illicit wealth of ours to India.

May, 2013 would mark the first anniversary of the presentation of this important document.   It would be in place first to recall what made Government to present this White Paper, and what has been the follow up till date.

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Last Sunday, March 31, 2013 was Easter Sunday, a very important Christian Festival.  While all other Christian festivals, according to the Gregorian calendar, fall on a fixed day every year, Easter is a festival that takes place on different dates each year.

Next year for instance, Easter is to be celebrated on April 20, 2014.

For us in the B.J.P. a party launched in 1980, Easter Sunday has a very special significance. In 1980, Easter Sunday fell on April 6^th, the day on which the BJP was Click to Read More

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