AWAKENINGS

A few points from Modi's Maan Ki Batt of 25th June 2017: 1. 25 th June 1975 – Imposition of Emergency by Indra Gandhi – India’s Dark Night: Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty. One needs to be constantly alert about our Democracy, that is why we must also keep remembering the events that inflicted harm upon our democracy; and at the same time move ahead, carrying forward the virtues of democracy. 1975 – 25 th  June – it was a dark night that no devotee of democracy can ever forget. The country had virtually become a prison. The voice of the opposition had been smothered. Several prominent leaders including Jai Prakash Narayan had been jailed. The judicial system too could not escape the sinister shadows of the Emergency. The press was completely muffled. The present-day students of journalism and the champions of democracy have been endeavouring towards raising awareness about that dark period, by constant reminders, and should continue to do so. ...

Warning: 1  Latest figures from the Swiss banks show the impact of our efforts to bring back black money from abroad. Since 1987, they have been disclosing this, but last year, Indians’ money in Swiss banks saw a 45% decline as against a 42% increase registered in 2013! Such account holders will have more problems in two years’ time, when Swiss authorities start sharing the data on such accounts’ transactions on a real time basis. Warning: 2 Time has come to crack down on those earning high incomes, but not paying taxes. There are many luxury houses in big cities, the existence of 8 lac doctors, nearly 8 lac accountants, over 2 crore engineers and business school graduates and 2.18 crore Indians going overseas on holiday just last year – Despite this, we have just 32 lacs people in a country of 125 crore declaring an income over £ 10 lac in their income tax returns. This is the bitter truth. Mostly salaried call people in government or private companies pay...

With Modi by his side in the Rose Garden of the White House after they met for the first time, Trump said that Modi is his true friend and the relationship has never been stronger, has never been better. Trump had tweeted earlier  thus: “It is a great honour to have PM Modi here who has been such a great PM.”   Trump further said: “ I am proud to announce to the media, to the American people and to the Indian People, that Prime Minister Modi and I are world leaders in social media – we are believers – giving the citizens of our countries the opportunity to hear directly from their elected officials, and for us to hear directly from them. I guess it has worked very in both cases. I am thrilled to salute you, Prime Minister Modi , and the Indian People, for all that you are accomplishing together. Your accomplishments have been vast. India has the fastest growing economy in the world. We hope we are going to be catching you very soon in terms of percentage in...