Murali's Writeups...

Disclaimers/Mandatory disclosure: 1. The Author is a one-time hater of Imran Khan, then became an admirer, and is now clueless about Imran Khan’s status. 2. The Author had voted for BJP in the Parliamentary elections and had voted for other parties in State Assembly elections. 3. The Author has not yet decided on his voting preference for the 2024 elections. In August 2018, I wrote a blog titled “ Imran Khan Leads Pakistan, who should lead India ?” 5 years have elapsed since then. I thought I would revisit the contemporary issues and my views 5 years ago. Hence, this blog. Thiruvalluvar, a great Tamil poet said that it is more satisfying to carry a spear with which you attempted to kill an elephant (unsuccessfully), rather than carrying an arrow with which you successfully killed a rabbit. When I look at the Indian subcontinental scenario, the wisdom of Thiruvalluvar squarely applies to Imran Khans' case. He became PM after he was a celebrity for a long time. He has been in politic

1. The Constituent Assembly of India, comprising of people of great eminence drawn from all walks of life, and representing linguistic and religious minorities thought it fit to include Article 44 in the Constitution of India as one of the Directive Principles of the State Policy. Everyone in India nowadays knows that DPSPs, unlike fundamental rights are not enforceable in a court of law. The makers of the Constitution felt that the objectives of Art. 44 (though not possible under the then prevailing highly polarised and charged situation) should at some point of time work to accomplish these objectives. Under the constitutional law, the DPSPs are not legally enforceable. Yet, when it comes to pronouncing on the Constitutionality of the Legislations passed by the Indian Parliament and various State Legislatures, Constitutional courts in India will pronounce on the challenges to Constitutional validity in the light of desirable guidelines provided in part IV of the Indian Constitution.

A few years ago, I wrote a blog on the topic “Imran leads Pakistan, who should lead India?” In that blog , I concluded that among all the leaders, Mr Narendra Modi is a better bet. In fact, I was once a very ardent admirer of Imran Khan. My admiration for him was essentially because he had an Oxford degree, led his country to a World Cup victory and married a Jewish lady (now divorced) notwithstanding the strong anti-semitism in his country. Most importantly he established a state-of-the-art cancer hospital in Pakistan. I thought he was head and shoulders above most of the cricketers that I had seen in India and abroad. While it was known to everybody that Imran Khan as a political leader was propped up by the Pakistani Army-which has been given a greater right under their Constitution to control the destiny of Pakistan than its Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. Imran Khan as the Prime Minister of Pakistan was an unmitigated disaster. During his tenure, he did something which is un

ORIGINAL INCIDENT  The entire Nation was stunned when Shahrukh Khan’s son, Aryan Khan was arrested and kept in judicial custody for more than 3 weeks for consuming prohibited drugs. Mr Sameer Wankhede is a Dalit IRS officer hailing from a family of Muslims. He is a Law Enforcement Officer with an active service record of effecting more seizures and initiating prosecutions. When he was a Collector of Air customs in Mumbai, he was shot into prominence because he stopped and detained (for a short while), many influential members of Bollywood.  Subsequent to the arrest of Mr Khan and a few more high-profile arrests, the Government of Maharashtra initiated proceedings for the revocation of the SC certificate issued to him. The matter was duly transferred to the National SC Commission for examination of wrongdoing or malpractice in Mr Sameer Wankhede becoming an IRS officer under the SC quota. He was exonerated.  Apparently earlier, when his father was an Excise Inspector in the Government o

 Us-China Relations: India at Crossroads Part 3 Both for India and China, US market access is very important for their full development. For the United States, trade with China is very important even as the US imports more from China than it exports to Chinese markets. In fact, Donald Trump imposed punitive tariffs against Chinese goods essentially to see that the existing trade surplus with China is minimized. The arrival of Joe Biden indeed brought China some relief on this count. COVID and (the aggressive economic measures that China took against Australia when Australia wanted more transparent investigation and) the steadfast refusal of China to share full information about the origin and spread of COVID-19 made members of the Western Alliance to do some serious introspection about their trade relations with China. Japan had already announced all the Japanese Companies would pull out of China. Apple is relocating its manufacturing facility to India. Hence, China will be under pres