There was much heat and dust flying around in UP over the arrest of the editor(digital edition) of the Hindi edition of a prominent newspaper’s website for publishing the results of anexit poll on UP, which actually showed the BJP winning the state. However, though the English edition of the same website had put this survey up much more prominently, nothing happened to its editor. One wonders why. Anyway, till date it is not clear which company had conducted the survey. The email ID mentioned in the website reads drsrdi@gmail.com. Sources point out that by RDI there could be two possible organisations. The first is the Research and Development International. The MD of this company is one Rajiv Gupta, who denies that his organisation does not all conduct surveys. It is only involved in training officials of the human resources ministry. The second could be Research and Development Initiative, which is run by a one Devendra Kumar, who is close to BJP boss Amit Shah. But Kumar too says his organisation has no experience in running exit polls. Reports say that immediately after the surfacing of the poll results, the Election Commission filed 15 FIRs from as many places and it was under the initiative of a Ghaziabad police station that the Hindi editor was arrested overnight.

Sources say that Samajwadi Party President AkhileshYadav was the most annoyed by the results of the exit poll, though the newspaper group had promptly taken the results off. So upset was Akhilesh that when he held his meeting with state officials at around 9.30 pm that day, he pointedly asked ADG (Law and Order): “What has been done about the exit poll results?” The officials said in one voice that FIRs have been filed. “But what about arrests? Has anyone been arrested till now?” asked the peeved CM. officials looked askance and said, “Sir who should we arrest?” At this, Akhilesh rushed back to his inner sanctum, leaving the officials bewildered. The latter waited for about 15-20 minutes, but with no CM in sight, they too went back to their homes. It is said that it is just after this that the Hindi editor was put behind bars!

Courtesy the Press Club of India, at least 125 scribes and their families had a good tour of the Rashtrapati Bhavan last fortnight. They walked through the Bhavan, wondering at the marvelous architectural and sculptural beauty, visiting the Mughal Gardens and the Darbar Hall. President Pranab Mukherjee had opened the Rashtrapati Bhavan for the scribes. Sometime later, it was announced that the grand museum would also be opened, so the Club jumped up and claimed right of first sight, before any member of the public could enter. Though more than a 100 journalists had submitted their names for the proposed visit, there were only a handful on the appointed day. They could see the photographs and personal items used by previous presidents, their memorabilia and hand written notes and the expensive gifts they had received from their foreign visits. But perhaps the most thrilling was getting their photos taken with President Pranab Mukherjee. How? Well, there is a hi-tech chair. If you sit on it and click a button, lo and behold, your photo standing right next to His Excellency comes up on the touch screen. The scribes even walked side by side with Mahatma Gandhi and Lady Edwina Mountbatten on the day the Bhavan was inaugurated: virtual reality at its historic best, no doubt!

The bumper victory in Maharashtra has added new vigour to the BJP cadre in Uttar Pradesh and the decision to announce celebration of Victory Day- ‘Vijay Diwas’ across the country has fully charged the batteries of the party men. Initially there were some Doubting Thomas within the party itself who were unsure how wise it would be to hold these rallies in UP, where the poll process is ongoing, and Manipur, where elections will be held in two phases on March 4 and 8. Some top leaders were worried about that the Election Commission might clamp down on this. Finally, the decision was left to be taken by party president Amit Shah. BJP social engineering in UP is by now well known. It is common knowledge that the party had started its UP preparations much ahead in time. And Shah had his ears to the ground and knew well that the forward castes are waiting to press the Lotus Button. Hence, he decided to focus on the non-Yadav backward castes. Foisting Keshav Prasad Maurya as the state party boss clearly showed this caste engineering. The party has big ‘Lodh’ faces to showcase in Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharati. But allying with the smaller parties the BJP drew in some lower caste Kurmi votes. In Om Prakash Rajbhar, they have a magnet for the Rajbhar caste. In addition, it is learnt that it has successfully wooed away some stalwart leaders of other parties. This trick had delivered in the case of Jagdambika Pal and some other leaders in the 2014 general elections. This game plan has delivered in Maharashtra and the party seems confident that it will do so in UP as well.

With the elections rolling out in five states, some of the sharp ministers in the Modi government have made it a point to project the work their ministries have done. Among them is the minister for minority affairs, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. In the campus of his Kharak Singh Marg office, Naqvi has organised a ‘Hunar Haat’, or talent fete. And it is not just the artisans and craftsmen who are showing off their talents. A whole lot of cooks from the community from across the country are dishing out their choice food items, with the rider that they will use neither beef, nor pork in their cuisine. The two-week festival was punctuated by MahaShivratri, and for good measure, Naqvi summoned the leaders of the nearly two dozen food stalls and told them on that day, they will serve only pure vegetarian food. And not just that, for those in vrat they were told to prepare special ‘vrat thalies’. Naqvi now plans to take this festival on an all-India tour. Besides, the minister plans to organise a shayari and ghazal evening at the iconic Purana Qila and will name it ‘Sada-e-Sadbhav’, to showcase the long history of communal harmony in the country.

Astrological predictions by a famous astrologer, Pandit Sanjay Chaudhry, have put the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh in a quandary. Chaudhry had earlier, much earlier, predicted the certain win of Donald Trump in the US presidential polls last year. That prediction, which went against the liberal media wisdom and predictions of a Hillary Clinton landslide, has come true. Chaudhry had also predicted a bright future for the Akhilesh-Rahul combine in the annual predictions issue of the Parliamentarian magazine. Now he says that the Samajwadi Party-Congress coalition will come to power in UP. He says also that two women will play a critical role in this. Given that Sonia Gandhi is one of the two, is he suggesting that the other woman could be Mayawati?
Pandit Chaudhry has also suggested that while polling in the first three phases of the state elections will not warm the hearts of the SP-Cong combine, but polling in the fourth phase will give them a bumper crop of votes. Chaudhry predicts that after the UP polls, the cadres of both Mayawati’s BSP and BJP would go helter-skelter and both parties would be in disarray.
So far as the already concluded Punjab polls go, he says that while the BJP-Akali alliance will bite the dust, and Aam Aadmi Party would surge in terms of vote share, and yet, the Congress would form the government.
About the Goa assembly polls, which concluded on Feb 4, Panditji says that it will be impossible for either the BJP or the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party to form the government in the 40-seat assembly. Rather, he says either AAP or Congress will rise to power.
In the 70-seat Uttarakhand assembly, where polling concluded on Feb 15, rebels from within all the parties have played a crucial role, Panditji says, predicting a hung assembly in which the Congress will have a shade more say in forming (or not forming) the government.
And finally in for flung Manipur, Pandit Chaudhry says that in the 60-seat trial at the hustings, BJP’s vote share will see a hike, but still Congress will come to power. It will be interesting to watch out for how these predictions play out on March 11.

The nation has not heard the thundering “Nation Wants to Know” for a long time now. Famous News anchor has been turning from door to door to get his channel launched. Looking at his brand value, when he announced his resignation from english channel and set off with an investor, many others queued up at his table. He finally chose a Bengaluru investor who is not only a Rajya Sabha member but co-owns more than a couple of regional channels. The moneybag set up another company with his wife as a joint owner and put in Rs 50 crore as initial investment. No sooner, ‘The Nation Demands’ put in his financial projections on the table. It demanded a whopping Rs 500 crore. Of this, explained, Rs 200 crore would be needed as immediate investment, and then Rs 75 crore per year over the next four years, that is, another Rs 300 crore. At this the investor burst out, and said Rs 50 or 100 crore was more than enough to launch a channel. “Your 500 crore demand is absurd,” he reportedly said.
Cheesed off, he then took his Nation Demands brand to an automobile behemoth, but here too he failed to convince the man. He then reached up to the topmost industrialist of the country and said: “Why don’t you buy up my channel?” Pat came the response: “But where is your channel that you want me to buy?” So loudmouth said: “Why don’t you then become a silent partner and put in your money?” He drew a blank here too. So finally the famous anchor fell at the feet of the saffron party who had found enough favours in his erstwhile channel. It is learned that money is invested through foreign direct investors. So finally, scuttlebutt is that loudmouth has found the gold mine and his channel, first slated to launch in November last and then in January this year, will possibly launch in April. And hence, The Nation will earn back its right to know… phew!

His Excellency the President of India, Dada Pranab Mukherjee is immensely fond of ‘mudhi’, also called ‘murmura’ and is basically puffed rice. And what better than ‘mudhi’ from his native Bengal! The variety from there is unmatched in texture and taste and cannot be found anywhere else. So Prez Dada wanted it to be brought from there, but he had trouble. Apparently, according security regulations, the ‘mudhi’ has to be checked at three points. At every point, therefore, the packets are opened for testing. Now, this means that by the time the ‘mudhi’ reaches Dada’s kitchen, it is damp and loses its texture and freshness and crispness. Dada objected to this several times, but rules being rules, the security fools ruled. So finally, Dada, sources reveal, approached his Personal Staff. But they too said that rules are rules(and fools will rule). So finally, Dada has given up on ‘mudhi’… may be till he retires and settles in his less security-stringent Rajaji Marg residence!

The currency ban issue is not being ferried and hawked too much in the hot election contests in five states. Whatever the reasons may be, it seems that the political parties have decided to let barking dogs lie. Meanwhile, it seems that though the Reserve Bank of India had banned Rs 15.5 lakh crore, what has come back to is Rs 17 lakh crore. So where did the extra Rs 1.5 lakh crore come from? No one is asking, and no one replying either. And so, this is the largest democracy in the world!

In a not so rare incident nowadays, the voice of a genuine economist has been put in the freezer by a major media house.
It is learnt that Nobel laureate economist Dr Amartya Sen is seriously unwell these days and has come to reside and recuperate at his daughter’s home in Kolkata. Hearing this, a senior Bengali scribe from that large media house flew out to Kolkata, and using her Bong connections, tied up with Dr Sen for an interview. Sources reveal that despite his severe health problems, Dr Sen granted more than one-and-half hours to the scribe and spoke his mind on a range of subjects, from demonetisation to the economic policies of the Modi Sarkar.
Dr Sen apparently said that in countries where socio-economic disparities peak, a frustrated populace tends to elect an ultra-rightist government, which is the case in India with the Modi government and Donald Trump’s triumph in the US.
Dr Sen may have also indicated to the lady reporter that this could be his last interview to any print media. Buoyed by such a hard-hitting free speech from such an eminent personality, the reporter flew back to the Capital and filed her report post-haste. But surprise, surprise!The next day the interview did not appear. She waited for a couple of days, and finally walked up to her editor and asked why, especially because Dr Sen and his daughter had by then made a couple of calls embarrassing to the scribe, wanting to know when the interview will appear. She was told point blank that it will not appear because it is like a Bofors shelling against the country’s top leadership. Hence, the management will not allow this to be printed. However, she was reassured that her flight and other expenses would surely be reimbursed. Dr Sen and the scribe thus remain prisoners of conscience!