Tag Archive for: Narendra Modi

“Budget 2018: The government takes major steps with the aim of uplifting the nation’s women and children” in TOI Blog

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The year 2017 witnessed landmark rulings in the favor of women which were on a standstill for decades, having begun with women appointed in high profile government positions, and keen awareness for child protection.

Upholding the national pledge to uplift and protect women and children, the government has kick-started 2018 with greater momentum than the previous year. The Union Budget of 2018 has heightened its focus on welfare for women and children. This year’s budget has provided the Women and Child Development Ministry with an increase in funds by almost 12%, bringing the total to Rs. 24,700 Crores.

To inculcate a panorama of women ranging from rural to urban, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley introduced a boon to working women. With our prevailing governments no-nonsense attitude we witnessed a range of successes in the previous year’s Budget, 2018 is aimed at being the icing on the cake with yet provisions and more protection.

The obvious disparity in pay based on gender has been long plaguing the world, this year’s Budget aims at curbing economic discrimination. With a never before introduced provision, Arun Jaitley announced a reduction in the contribution that women employees make to the Employees Provident Fund Organisation, from 12% to 8%.

This move will increase the take-home pay, and is expected to increase job opportunities. India has a women’s labour force participation at a meager 24% as opposed to 40% globally, hopefully the reduction in EPFO will bring us at a global par. Modi’s campaign ‘Start Up India’ has made leaps and bounds through MUDRA Yojana, a scheme to provide funds to first time entrepreneurs at a concessional rate.

Arun Jaitley stated that a whopping 76% of the beneficiaries are women, to continue from the previous year this scheme has received a boost of Rs 3 Lakh Crores.  In order to further assist working women and mothers we will see a significant increase to existing schemes in the coming financial year.

The National Creche Scheme’s allocation will be doubled; under this scheme the children of working mothers are provided a safe haven, while the allocation for Working Women’s Hostel Scheme has been raised by 20%. These facilities are free of cost and provide women the required freedom and safety needed to be self-dependent.

On the other hand to further ensure cost-cutting and better health standards of women there is the Ujjwala Yojana. Under this Yojana poor families are provided cleaner cooking gas for a bare minimum amount, which is a boon to the health of women who choke in the kitchen due to the smoke from cooking. Conceived two years ago the current government exceeded its annual target in 2016-17, for the 2018-19 budget we can expect a similar projection.

The Pradhan Mantri Saubhagya Yojana, which provides free electricity to rural households has been given a target of 4 crores households, and 2 crore toilets will be installed under the Swachch Bharat Mission.  Mahila Shakti Kendra, a One Stop Shop for women empowerment at the village level, is one of the ambitious projects of the Ministry. Its allocation has been increased four-fold to Rs. 267 Crores.

The Finance Minister further stated that the loans extended to Women Self-Help Groups are expected to increase to Rs. 75000 Crores by the end of 2018-19 from Rs. 42500 Crores. Rs. 500 Crores have been provided for transfer to the Nirbhaya fund from which various schemes of Central Government and State Governments are supported for safety and protection of women. The enhanced allocation will help in creating a safety net for women in difficult situations.

Witnessing the horrendous 2017 events which brought a limelight to the predominant vulnerability of children, the Ministry has shown that the protection of children is an important area of focus. The allocation for the protection of children has been increased by 12% for the year 2018-19.

Arun Jaitley also shared some good news about a recently started Scheme launched by the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Campaign. Approximately 1.26 crore girls have benefitted through the Sukanya Samridhi Yojana accounts, which is a deposit scheme meant to meet the marriage and education expense of a girl child.

Discrimination against women is prevalent in all classes, yet up till now each budget was focused on underprivileged women. The major complaint by most regarding the previous budget was that working class women weren’t included.

For this year’s budget the government has taken serious consideration and introduced the reduction of EPFO for women of all classes. This year’s budget has been widely received with warmth when it comes to women and children, especially due to the great achievements by the current government in previous budgets.

Exposing Hate India Brigade

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The exposure of the Hate India Brigade has many inseparable perspectives; to understand the complexity of this nexus is a national responsibility and requires complete understanding of the underlying meaning of each organisation’s action. This nexus is an amalgamation of NGO’s, international powers, media and politicians that strive together to misguide the Indian national, each has their own agenda. The shock is that to propagate their agenda, a collusion has been formed with terrorists and anti-national forces, resulting in a threat to the safety of our citizens.

The most frightening aspect of this nexus is the illegal work of NGOs. When the CBI investigated registered NGOs, it was found that there were 31 lakh registered NGOs, double the number of registered schools in the country. Per 709 persons there is only one police personnel; but for 400 persons there is one NGO. To have more NGOs than police personnel is a shocking disparity.

An NGO in itself is not objectionable. What is objectionable is when it is driven by the ambition to break the country rather than serving the nation, when the ambition is to spur communal violence, when the ambition is to protect violent Naxals in the name of human rights.

Many NGOs accept money from foreign countries to fight against the implementation of Indian nuclear energy plants. In 2012, the UPA government cancelled the registration of three NGOs that attempted to hamper work on the Kudankulam nuclear plant. The accusation was that they were taking money from America to stage their protests.

When the National Investigation Agency probed the Kashmiri Hawala money, it was found that there were many NGOs involved. When the Narendra Modi government took proactive steps to stop illegal misconduct of NGOs, nationally and internationally, they responded with well-planned and orchestrated propaganda against the government, calling them fascists.

Another group, taken aback by the rise of Narendra Modi, are self-proclaimed non-religious persons who support Islamic hardliners and their agenda, the ‘Award wapsi gang’. In 2014, they felt that it would be difficult to stop Modi from becoming Prime Minister, but issued an appeal to the public, hoping to change the course of the election. In the name of liberalism, they support anti-national activities. They hug the anti-national nonentities from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and in the name of freedom of speech and anti-death penalty, give protection to Naxals and terrorists. Every day they issue statements supporting Hurriyat, and now applaud Karnataka for raising its own flag.

The issue of cow protection has taken the media by storm with false allegations by the nexus making the issue a daily national staple. Protection of cows is enshrined in Article 48 of the Directive Principles of the Constitution. It is testimony that the founders of our Constitution hoped that future governments would create a law to stop cow slaughter.

In Haryana, an example of this gang’s evil was seen in an episode in which one Junaid was killed over a fight for a railway seat. The Hate India Brigade spread rumors at times linking the scuffle to cow vigilantism and at times to eating beef. The Kerala government dramatically declared Rs. 10 Lakh compensation to the family of Junaid. But when the family of Junaid came forward to testify that the quarrel was over a seat and had nothing to do with any other issue, they all fell silent. Their job was only to throw dirt on the government in the hope that someday the defamation will stick.

The ugly face of communists comes forth when it’s seen that all disruptive, anti-national, and terrorist movements are supported by them. For them their ideology is first and the nation is later. They don’t believe in nationalism. They don’t think of India as one, they believe India is a confederation of nations. At times it is suspected that they work at the behest of foreign powers to promote their agenda. Independent India’s greatest tragedy is the hypocrisy of vandals.

Communists never respected the Independence Struggle; they tried to fail the ‘Quit India’ movement. Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose and Jai Prakash Narayan were mocked. They didn’t stop here and refused to accept independence and started an armed struggle against the nation. In 1962, they supported China; they supported the national emergency and press censorship in 1975.

During the ethnic cleansing of three lakh Kashmiri Pundits, the communists, Congress Party, and media gang were quiet; now they are giving publicity and support to stone pelters. It is well-known that stone-pelters are paid and deadly terrorists are protected. During the attack on the Amarnath yatra, their agenda was to create communal riots all over the nation, but the Modi government handled the situation with a firm hand.

Knowledge of the Malda and Dhulagarh incidents in West Bengal reached Delhi, but the Hate India Brigade and their collaborators in the media simply squashed (read censored) these issues. The Basirhat riots attracted attention when Arnab Goswami and Rahul Shivshankar did a post-mortem of the Bengal riots. After this, it was as if Pandora’s Box was opened. Take the evacuation of Kashmiri pundits or the atrocities of Hindu’s in Bengal, when Hindus die, nobody takes notice.

In the Noida Sector 78 Mahagun Society case, Bangladeshis attacked a gated society on the false accusation made by Zohra Bibi, who worked in flats in the society. A mob of 500 people collected and violently stormed into the gated society. This incident raised many questions, namely, instead of trying to find Zohra Bibi, why did people reach the society with sticks and stones?

Within one night, how did so many people find items to fight with, and who collected them together to fight at 6 a.m.? This incident is evidence of the fact that a greater force is working within the nation, a strategically aligned force, which comes together to brainwash the less-informed public.

We all need to wake up and work for the nation; this is only possible by scrutinizing each action with careful analysis.

The author is a successful businesswoman – IWEC Awardee, social activist, honoured by the  President of India.