The Latest: Top stories of the day
1. Ousted Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat is to face a floor test in the state assembly today. In Dehradun, prohibitory orders under Section 144 have been imposed.
2. The Supreme Court has reaffirmed its ruling on the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, saying states cannot hold their own common entrance tests for medical and dental colleges.
3. Nearly 75% of drought-hit villages in Bundelkhand have seen no state action in three months, survey finds.
The Big Story: The third degree
Did Prime Minister Narendra Modi go to college? That seems to have become the burning question of the day. The Aam Aadmi Party has been storming the bastions of Delhi University, armed with Right to Information applications that demand proof of the prime minister's alleged bachelor's degree. Not to be outdone, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Amit Shah and Arun Jaitley held a rousing press conference on Monday. Certificates were brandished. Memories of the prime minister writing exams during the Emergency were dredged up.
In successive election affidavits, Modi has claimed that he holds a bachelor's degree. His 2014 election affidavit says he holds both graduate and post-graduate degrees. But questions have been raised about the documents produced to support these claims. The 1978 Delhi University degree was reportedly awarded to a Narendra Mahavir Modi, not a Narendra Damodardas Modi, which is the prime minister's given name. AAP also argues there are discrepancies between the mark sheets and the degree certificates. Modi's post graduate degree certificate does not fare much better. Gujarat University appears to grant him a handsome first class in "Entire Political Science" in the year 1983. But a former member of the faculty has now surfaced to claim that the prime minister was an irregular student and the names of the papers mentioned in the certificate do not sound right.
If the degrees are indeed false, as AAP alleges, it is worrying because it would mean that the prime minister has repeatedly fabricated his election affidavits. This is a serious charge. It also blows holes in the inspirational success story that was told during the election campaign, that of a chaiwallah rising in the world through grit and determination to become prime minister of India. It held out the dream of opportunity to thousands of poor, uneducated voters. False degrees would belie the confidence and optimism of this story, so central to the Modi's appeal.
But the clamour around the prime minister's degrees also needs to be examined. Too often, the question, "did he lie?" is code for "is he qualified?" It betrays the obsession of the Indian middle class with degrees and qualifications. It is of a piece with the shaming of Human Resources Development Minister Smriti Irani over her degree claims – once again, concerns that she may have lied in her affidavit were drowned out by tongue clicking over the fact that a mere high school graduate had become HRD minister. It goes against cherished constitutional principles, which do not allow economic or educational barriers to contesting elections in a deeply unequal country. This ugly, elitist crowing should be separated from valid concerns about whether Modi's election affidavit is a truthful document.
Politicking and Policying
1. The Congress and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have struck a clandestine deal to keep the United Democratic Front in power in Kerala, alleges Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
2. Meanwhile, in Tamil Nadu, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader M Karunanidhi says there is "no stopping the DMK front", claims ownership of the state's numerous welfare schemes.
3. The new raft of Panama Papers released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists contains 37,000 files related to India.
Punditry
1. In the Indian Express, Christophe Jaffrelot argues that laws prescribing educational qualifications for contesting elections are undemocratic.
2. In the Hindu, Amitabh Bagchi on how the Geospatial Information Regulation Bill, 2016, threatens to kill innovation in the data ecosystem.
3. In the Business Standard, Shreekant Sambrani on how American politics have allowed outsiders to break through the entry barrier. Take the case of Donald Trump.
Don't Miss...
MK Bhadrakumar on why India should not be playing Game of Thrones in Nepal:
Take the cataclysmic downturn in the relations between India and Sri Lanka in the early 1980s that made the stuff of tragic history eventually within the decade. One main reason behind the trust deficit between the then leaderships of Indira Gandhi in India and of JR Jayewardene in Sri Lanka in the early 1980s, was that the Indian prime minister somehow insisted on keeping a line of communication directly to Sirimao Banadaranaike, the iconic opposition figure in Colombo, even after she became a political outcast following her indictment for abuse of power as prime minister and banned from public life in 1980.
All this is far from a moot point, as the echo of the footfalls of early ‘80s can be heard in the corridors of power today. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s situation vis-à-vis his Nepalese counterpart, KP Sharma Oli bears an uncanny resemblance to Indira Gandhi’s with JR.
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