Karti Chidambaram pens letter to father on birthday; takes dig at BJP govt

International News

On the 74th birthday of former finance minister P Chidambaram, his son Karti wrote a letter to him, mostly taking a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In his letter, Karti criticised the government and its ministers, citing various recent events.
At the beginning of the letter, Karti wished his father and said that "no 56!!! can stop you", a clear jibe at PM Modi. He said the family would have been glad to celebrate the birthday at home, and added "turning 74 is nothing compared to turning 100 days old". (The BJP government just completed 100 days in office).
P Chidambaram now has access to newspapers and limited television in the prison. Karti, through his letter, got him up to speed with the recent events that his father missed due to unavailability of mass media. He informed that Chandrayaan-2 failed to soft-land on the moon. He wrote that PM Modi took the opportunity to console K Sivan, the chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) which according to him was more of theatrics. Karti mentioned Piyush Goyal's 'Einstein and gravity' gaffe too.
He wrote that the government had been celebrating its 100 days in office which was nothing more than celebration of failures.
He informed P Chidambaram about the failing economy, car sale slump, Sensex hitting new lows, and more such events.

 He talked about the plight of the people of Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 and said that he was better off than them despite being in jail. He said that the BJP government had been trying to celebrate a bad patch of their tenure and they could not have found a better time to silence him...Read More

BJP manifesto rooted in reality, prepared with nationalist vision: Jaitley

Election News

BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Monday said the BJP's manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections beginning this week has not been prepared with a 'tukde tukde' mindset but with a strong nationalist vision.
The document, 'Sankalp Patra' (document of resolve), is rooted in reality, Jaitley said after Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the manifesto.

"Our new policy, new doctrine of striking terror in its origin has received global recognition," Jaitley told the gathering.

The Union finance minister said the party was committed to annulling Article 35 A of the Constitution, which provides special rights and privileges to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
The provision is discriminatory against non-permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir, he said.
When India is at the cusp of history making most of all its lost opportunities, does it require a fragile government or a decisive one, he asked.

Jaitley added that previous governments only gave slogans, but the Modi-led administration gave resources to the poor.

He said the essence of the BJP manifesto is to deplete poverty over the next five years to single digit and then gradually eliminate it.

"Our fiscal prudence since 1947 has been best ever for any government," the finance minister said.

 (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)