LK Advani’s Blog

नवम्बर, 2008 में बराक ओबामा संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका के राष्ट्रपति निर्वाचित हुए। अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति का चुनाव प्रत्येक चार वर्ष पश्चात् होता हैं। अत: आगामी चुनाव नवम्बर 2012 में होगा। कानून में चुनाव की निश्चित तिथि तय है, जो कहता है कि चुनाव ”नवम्बर के पहले सोमवार के बाद के मंगलवार को होंगे।” कानून की इस परिभाषा के मुताबिक पहली संभावित तिथि 2 नवम्बर हो सकती है और अंतिम 8 नवम्बर तक।

नवम्बर 2012 में पहला सोमवार 5 नवम्बर को पड़ता है। अत: अमेरिका में चुनाव की तिथि 6 नवम्बर, 2012 होगी।

क्या कुछ इसी तरह की बात ब्रिटिश चुनावों के बारे में कही जा सकती है? सामान्यतया, Click to Read More

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Barack Obama was elected President of United States in November 2008. The Presidential Elections in the USA take place every four years. The next election is thus due in November 2012. The law lays down even the exact date of polls, when it says that the election shall be held “on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November”. With this phraseology of the law, the earliest possible date is November 2, and the latest November 8.

In November 2012, the first Monday falls on the 5th. So the election date in USA shall be November 6, 2012.

Can anything be said in the same way about the British elections? Ordinarily, No ! But if the new coalition that has just assumed office has its way, YES ! The next General Election in UK will take place on May 7, 2015. The new Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has already made this declaration.

***

Some months back, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had hosted a luncheon in honour of the Japanese Prime Minister. I remember that on the sidelines, I had an informal chat that day with Dr. Manmohan Singh and Shri Pranab Mukherjee. I found both of them receptive to a proposal I have been advocating for quite some time: fixed term legislatures and simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. The upshot would be: no uncertainty about the date of the five-yearly Lok Sabha and Click to Read More

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

मेरे और मेरी सुपुत्री प्रतिभा के लिए पिछला सप्ताह सदैव अविस्मरणीय रहेगा। लगातार दो दिनों तक हमने दो ऐसे पवित्र स्थलों की यात्रा की जिन्हें देखने के लिए हम काफी समय से सोच रहे थे।

पहला गंगोत्री था जोकि पवित्र गंगा का उद्गम स्थल है। गंगोत्री से 19 किलोमीटर ऊपर गोमुख से गंगोत्री ग्लेशियर प्रारम्भ होता है। गंगोत्री में गंगा के निकट जहां यज्ञ हो रहा था और जिसमें पूर्णाहूति के लिए मुझे आमंत्रित किया गया था, पर जब हमने पांव गंगा में रखे तो ग्लेशियर का पानी बर्फ जैसा था।

दूसरा था केदारनाथ जो कि देश के बारह ज्योर्तिलिंगों में से एक है। इनमें सर्वाधिक Click to Read More

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

For me and my daughter Pratibha, last week will remain absolutely unforgettable. On two consecutive days we visited two hallowed sites that we had been longing to see for quite some time.

The first was Gangotri, the origin of the holy Ganga. The Gangotri glacier starts from Gomukh, 19 kms. uphill from Gangotri. When at Gangotri , we stepped into the Ganga close to the site where a yagna was being performed and for which I had been invited to offer the poornahuti we naturally found the glacier water ice-cold.

A Ghat at Gangotri

The second was Kedarnath, one of the country’s twelve Jyotirlings. The foremost among these Dwadash Jyotirlings is Somnath, in Gujarat. In the political transformation of India’s single dominant party polity into a bipolar polity the BJP’s Somnath to Ayodhya rath yatra has had a significant role.

The State of Uttarakhand is littered with pilgrim spots. No wonder it is popularly known as Devabhoomi. Gangotri and Kedarnath are reckoned as two of the four Dhams in the state Click to Read More

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

3 मई के अपने ब्लॉग में मैंने गुजरात के स्वर्ण जयंती समारोह के बारे में लिखा था। उसमें मैंने बताया था कि कैसे नरेन्द्रभाई मोदी ने एक प्रशासनिक कार्यक्रम को लोगों के कार्यक्रम में परिवर्तित कर और प्रत्येक नागरिक को, प्रत्येक क्षेत्र में गुजरात को एक आदर्श राज्य बनाने के संकल्प में सहभागी बनाने का गर्वोत्तम अवसर देकर अपने आप को एक अद्वितीय मुख्यमंत्री सिध्द किया है।

सामान्य तौर पर कहा जाए तो अब लोग यह स्वीकारने लगे हैं कि गुजरात में ईमानदार शासन और विकास हुआ है और नरेन्द्रभाई की उपलब्धियां विवादों से ऊपर हैं। पर प्रश्न यह उठता है कि राज्य में Click to Read More

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

In my blog dated 3rd May, I had written about the Swarna Jayanti Samaroh of Gujarat. In this I had pointed out how Narendra Bhai Modi had proved a unique Chief Minister who had converted a prashasanik programme into a People’s Programme and made every citizen feel a proud participant in the sankalp to make Gujarat a model state in every sense of the word.

Generally speaking, by now, people have widely come to acknowledge that in terms of honest governance and development of Gujarat, Narendra Bhai’s achievements are beyond dispute. What is often questioned is how harmonious are inter-communal relations in the state, and specifically speaking, how happy and contented the Muslims are in the State.

In 2006 Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh appointed a high power committee headed by Justice Shri Rajinder Sachar to make a detailed study of the economic, social and educational conditions of Muslims in the country.

The Sachar Committee after completing the task assigned to it, submitted a detailed Report of over 400 pages. Given below are some very pertinent facts based on the statistics provided by the Sachar Report which look into various parameters like education, employment and income of the Muslim population living in rural and urban areas of the country through elaborate tables. Here Click to Read More

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

पिछले पखवाड़े, नई दिल्ली से प्रकाशित ‘आउटलुक’ पत्रिका ने एक सनसनीखेज रिपोर्ट प्रकाशित की थी कि कैसे एक केंद्रीय मंत्री, एक मुख्यमंत्री, एक कांग्रेसी महासचिव और सीपीएम पार्टी के एक प्रमुख नेता के फोन टेप किए जा रहे हैं और उनकी बातचीत को टेप किया गया है।

रिपोर्ट से संसद में हंगामा हुआ। सरकार ने रिपोर्ट का खण्डन नहीं किया। उसने यह कहा कि : निगरानी के लिए किसी को ”अधिकृत” नहीं किया गया था। सरकार ने इतना भी नहीं कहा कि वे पता लगाएंगे कि बगैर अधिकृत किए किसने यह काम किया और ‘अपराधियों’ को पकड़ा जाएगा। स्पष्ट है कि सरकार के सिवाय किसी और का यह काम नहीं है!

यह Click to Read More

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

A fortnight back the Outlook of New Delhi carried a startling story of how a Union Minister, a Chief Minister, a Congress General Secretary and the principal leader of the CPI(M) had been subjected to phone-tapping and how their conversations had been tape-recorded.

The report caused an uproar in the Parliament. Government did not deny the story. All that it said was: the surveillance was “not authorized.” Government did not even say that they would find out who had undertaken this exercise without authority, and haul up the ‘culprits’. Obviously, no one other than Government itself had done it !

It is significant that Government did not deny the Outlook story relating to Union Minister Sharad Pawar, in which it was said that Pawar’s conversation with Lalit Modi was used to pressurise Pawar to call for Modi’s resignation !

My blog on the Outlook story bore the caption “Is the Emergency back?” Some friends felt that mine was an exaggerated reaction. I am convinced that the real test of a ruling party’s commitment to democracy comes only when adherence to democratic norms poses a danger to its continuance in office.

***

In his excellent book on the Watergate episode, The Fall of Richard Nixon, Theodore H. White has made this very perceptive observation :

“The true crime of Richard Nixon was that he broke the Click to Read More

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

अहमदाबाद का सरदार पटेल स्टेडियम एक विशाल स्टेडियम है। वास्तव में 54000 सीटों की क्षमता वाला यह गुजरात का सर्वाधिक बड़ा स्टेडियम है। यहां मैं पिछली बार दिसम्बर, 2007 में विधानसभा चुनावों में भाजपा की शानदार विजय के बाद श्री नरेन्द्र मोदी और उनके मंत्रिमंडल के शपथ समारोह कार्यक्रम में आया था।

इसलिए, 1 मई को गुजरात राज्य के स्वर्ण जयंती समारोह के अवसर पर जब मैं स्टेडियम स्थित समारोह स्थल पहुंचा तो यह जानकर आश्चर्यचकित रह गया कि न केवल स्टेडियम खचाखच भरा है अपितु स्टेडियम के बाहर काफी लोग हैं जो अंदर आना चाहते हैं।

अहमदाबाद के ‘द टाइम्स ऑफ इंडिया’ ने मुख Click to Read More

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad is a huge stadium. In fact, with a capacity of 54000 seats, it is the largest stadium in Gujarat. I had last visited this place for the oath taking ceremony of Shri Narendra Modi and his Cabinet in December 2007 after the BJP’s spectacular victory in the State Assembly elections.

So, on May 1 this year, the Golden Jubilee anniversary of the formation of Gujarat in 1960, I was astounded to hear when I reached this stadium, the venue fixed for Swarnim Gujarat Celebrations, that the stadium was not only jam packed but that there were as many people outside the gates wanting entry as there were inside.

The Times of India, Ahmedabad, in its main story on page one reported:

“For a generation that has grown up knowing their home-state of Gujarat only as a business-driven dry state on the west coast of the country, Saturday’s Swarnim show was an eye-opener. In brilliantly synchronized multimedia show that began with fireworks, the story of Gujarat from pre-historic era, through the era of Siddhraj Jaisingh, Sultan Ahmed Shah, the landing of Parsis at Sanjan and the separation of Bombay state to become a separate entity in 1960, was narrated before a jam- packed crowd at Sardar Patel stadium here.

Outside a huge crowd, including bureaucrats, politicians and other VVIPs, struggled to be part of the celebration and got Click to Read More

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!