The Latest: Top stories of the day
1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated his second anniversary of being in power by launching the Bharatiya Janata Party's campaign for Uttar Pradesh, which goes to the polls next year.
2. A blast in a government bus in Kurukshetra, Haryana, injured 12 in an incident the Ministry of Home Affairs described as a terror attack.
3. Three people were killed and at least 40 injured after an explosion in a chemical factory in Dombivali, a suburb of Mumbai.
The Big Story: As you sow...
Maybe Subramanian Swamy means well. The Bharatiya Janata Party leader, who is also a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament, has been on a crusade to ensure that Reserve Bank of India chief Raghuram Rajan does not get an extension when his term finished in September. Swamy has genuine questions not just about Rajan's economic policymaking abilities, but also the RBI Governor's commitment to India. He has informed the prime minister about his concerns.
The problem is, Swamy is a loose cannon who thrives on media attention. Which means every one of his arguments against Rajan comes couched in careless language and is then released for public consumption. As an example, Swamy's latest tirade against Rajan came in the form of a letter where he effectively accused the RBI governor of being part of a secret American plot to ruin India and maintain the US' dominant position in the world economy.
As V Anantha Nageswaran pointed out in Mint, this crusade is doing "irreparable damage" to the prime minister and the RBI governor's office. Think about it: Even if Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose not to extend Rajan's tenure as RBI Governor in September – say because of disagreements in his monetary policy approach – it will now be read as affirmation of all of Swamy's complaints, and thereby open up every subsequent governor to the same sort of cheap rabble rousing tactics.
In effect this means that Swamy has done the opposite of what he would like. He has made it harder for the government to sack Rajan, since his tenure will be closely watched by international observers. Worse, the Rajya Sabha MP has had a free hand to throw muck at Rajan, the head of a major institution, without so much as a rebuke. Only the finance minister has openly said he doesn't "appreciate" the attacks on Rajan.
The BJP always knew Swamy was an unruly maverick. He is useful as an attack dog, willing for example to take on Congress vice president Sonia Gandhi when even many in the BJP will not take his name. But that rogue nature brings with it plenty of unwanted attention, such as this campaign against Rajan, which is damaging the relationship between the Centre and the central bank.
Politicking & Policying
1. The Supreme Court has permitted the remaining Italian marine, accused of murdering a Kerala fisherman in 2012, to return home after a United Nations court recommended this, giving India guarantees about Rome's obligation to hand him over if found guilty.
2. Four of the ministers taking their oaths as ministers in West Bengal's new government also appeared in the Narada sting tapes that allegedly showed them accepting bribes.
3. The Congress' hopes of nominating former minister P Chidambaram to the Rajya Sabha based its results in Tamil Nadu's assembly elections have fallen flat, with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-Congress combine only likely to command two RS seats, both of which will go to the Dravidian party.
4. It's all Uttar Pradesh, all the time for the BJP now: The party has scheduled its national executive meeting in mid-June to be held in Allahabad, as it continues focus on the state that holds elections next year and could send a sign about the national mood.
Punditry
1. "Nehru is not to be belittled," writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi in the Hindustan Times, on the death anniversary of India's first prime minister.
2. India fails Africa, and itself, by carrying on, business as usual, instead of trying to address the political and social discrimination that the Africa Day incident brought up, says a leader in the Hindu.
3. You just can't ignore the magnitude of the change brought in by India's bankruptcy law, writes Ben Merton in the Business Standard.
Don't Miss
MK Bhadrakumar writes that two years of Narendra Modi's foreign policy have been a chronicle of missed opportunities.
"Clearly, the two-year balance sheet is deplorable in regard of Nepal where intrusive policies propagating “Hindu Rashtra” provoked a backlash, and the relationship is in tatters.
The Modi government failed by the yardstick of its own electoral pledge to bring about a paradigm shift in neighbourhood policies. It needs to go back to the drawing board.
Simply put, India’s smaller neighbours have multiple options in a polycentric world order, and the whole concept of “sphere of influence” is archaic and unsustainable."
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