This week, Home Minister Rajnath Singh is to visit West Bengal, specifically Malda that saw about 100,000 protesters gathered for a rally called by a little-known Muslim organisation, Idara-e-Shariya, against a right-wing activist's alleged hate speech in Uttar Pradesh and in the rally, attacked the Kaliachak police station and vehicles parked outside it. They also ransacked police barracks and a block development officer's office.
As much as 51 per cent of the population of Malda, which borders Bangladesh, is Muslim. The Trinamool Congress won only one assembly seat out of 12 in 2011 but since then, defections from the Congress and the Left have brought the Trinamool Congress' tally up to five. Two Lok Sabha seats were won by the Congress in 2014.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has, so far, been a minor player in the state. It got 16 per cent vote share in 2014 but its performance was poorer in the recent civic polls. It is now targeting the Assembly polls. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP increased its vote share in Malda by almost 15 per cent.
Start Up India, Stand Up India to kick off on Jan 16
This week will see the rollout of the Start Up India, Stand Up India on January 16, after the Union Cabinet cleared the scheme last week. The PM had first unveiled the idea of the scheme on August 15, 2015. "The world doesn't grow without innovation and opportunity for the youth. The government is going to launch the complete action plan and details on January 16 for the mission," Modi had said.
The programme, to foster entrepreneurship especially among Dalits, scheduled tribes (ST) and women, to do hand-holding and advice on how to get capital, is one of the pet schemes of the PM. It will provide a refinance window through the Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi), with an initial amount of Rs 10,000 crore. A credit guarantee mechanism through the National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company (NCGTC) will be created, so that banks don't have to take any risks.
The overall intent of the approval is to leverage the institutional credit structure to reach out to these under-served sectors of the population by facilitating bank loans repayable up to seven years and between Rs 10 lakh to Rs 100 lakh for greenfield enterprises in the non farm sector set up by such scheduled castes, ST and women borrowers.
Question over Indo-Pak talks
This is the week when Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries were to meet to resume talking on Indo-Pakistan relations. The meeting was scheduled for January 14-15 in Pakistan. Then the Pathankot attacks happened, followed by attacks on Indian consulates at Mazar-e-Sharif and Jalalabad in Afghanistan. India has said talks would take place if Pakistan shows alacrity in investigations. Will the talks happen? Or is it going to be more of the same where India turns its back on Pakistan and refuses to speak? We will know this week.
Decision on odd-even scheme today
On Monday, we might get to know what the Delhi High Court has decided on the odd-even policy of the Delhi government. The context was a verbal query by the court wondering why it was necessary for the state government to put curbs on vehicles based on their odd or even registration numbers and prevent them from running. The court wanted to know whether the Delhi government had any quantifiable data on its policy and if it had actually brought pollution down. The court felt that a week was enough time to test if pollution had really gone down.
The government has, through its lawyers, said it intended to extend the policy beyond January 15. So, in short, it is ready for a confrontation with the judiciary.
In the parallel, the central government is also questioning the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government's right to probe into the affairs of private companies. The issue was the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) and alleged corruption during the tenure of Arun Jaitley, currently Union finance minister but, then, president of DDCA. The Delhi government announced a probe but the central government has said such a probe is illegal. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said only a court can decide this issue, that the Centre has no jurisdiction. So, it is another stand-off. The AAP government is probably the most quarrelsomely assertive government Delhi has ever had!
Pune International Film Festival from Jan 14
The Government of Maharashtra and the Pune Film Foundation will together hold the 14th Pune International Film Festival from January 14 to 21. This annual festival is one of the most eagerly awaited events on the Pune cultural scene. As many as 986 film entries from 104 different countries, will be screened. The festival is even more important because Pune, the seat of the Film and Television Institute (FTII), has been seeing a restive relationship between the students at FTII and recently appointed chief Gajendra Chauhan. The test of the government will be to ensure the festival goes off without a hitch.
