This is the biggest news this week. The sitting Russian President, Vladimir Putin has been re-elected for the fourth term as the President of Russia.
Was it an election, was it a sham of an election, was it a rigged-up election or was it a democratically conducted election, we have no right to comment. We were not present there. Nor are we going to change the course of events in that country by commenting about it. So, suffice to say, three elections in the past one year in our part of the world, and the results are:
- China: Elections over. Xi Jin Ping is back in office. He is not a friend of
Bharat. - Pakistan: Elections over. The army is back wielding power. Shahbaz Sharif
is in office. Neither Pakistan army nor Sharif are friends of Bharat. - Bangladesh: Elections over. Awami League won the elections. Shekh
Hasina is back in office for the fifth time as Prime Minister. She is no great
friend of Bharat. - Russia: Presidential elections were held in Russia from 15th to 17th March
2024. The incumbent President Vladimir Putin won with 87% of the votes.
He is a great friend of Bharat. A great friend of our Prime Minister.
Vladimir Putin has now been the president of Russia for the last 20 years. Ever since he suddenly took over in 1999, he was President for two consecutive terms. He was then faced with a situation of not being eligible to contest for the post of President for a third consecutive term. He handled that by becoming the Prime Minister and making Dmitry Medvedev the President for one term.
A list of Russian Presidents since 1991 are as given below.
Boris Yeltsin 1991-1999 8 years 5 days.
Vladimir Putin 2000-2008 8 years 0 days
Dmitry Medvedev 2008-2012. 4 years 0 days
Vladimir Putin 2012- Present 11 years 316 days.
After his third term as President of Russia, he not only changed the constitution, so that he could contest for consecutive terms, but also increased the term of President’s office to six years.
Russia’s economy grew 3.6% in 2023 after a revised 1.2% contraction in 2022.
Russia GDP – Historical Data
Year GDP Per Capita Growth
2022 $2,240.42B $15,345 -2.07%
2021 $1,836.89B $12,593 5.61%
2020 $1,493.08B $10,194 -2.65%
2019 $1,693.11B $11,536 2.20%
2018 $1,657.33B $11,287 2.81%
2017 $1,574.20B $10,720 1.83%
2016 $1,276.79B $8,705 0.19%
2015 $1,363.48B $9,313 -1.97%
2014 $2,059.24B $14,096 0.74%
2013 $2,292.47B $15,975 1.76%
2012 $2,208.29B $15,421 4.02%
2011 $2,045.92B $14,311 4.30%
2010 $1,524.92B $10,675 4.50%
2009 $1,222.65B $8,563 -7.80%
2008 $1,660.85B $11,635 5.20%
2007 $1,299.70B $9,101 8.50%
2006 $989.93B $6,920 8.20%
2005 $764.02B $5,323 6.40%
2004 $591.02B $4,102 7.20%
2003 $430.35B $2,975 7.30%
2002 $345.47B $2,378 4.70%
2001 $306.60B $2,100 5.10%
2000 $259.71B $1,772 10.00%
1999 $195.91B $1,331 6.40%
The Western world would like to believe, that the Russian economy is in doldrums, after the Russia-Ukraine war. But unfortunately, the truth is otherwise. With increasing confidence, Putin has handled Russian economy on the right lines. As a result, the Russian economy has been rising at a steady pace, in spite of the war with Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on it by the western world.
C A A
Let’s try to understand CAA in simple terms. The Citizenship Amendment Act proposes to give Indian citizenship to those people, persecuted non-Muslim migrants from the three countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, who came to India before 31 Dec, 2014. These are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians. Do we see nothing wrong with it? Even some of the previous governments have done this. And this present dispensation at the Centre has done it, as per their poll promise of 2019.
To understand it in more simple language, we have three great neighbours. Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. All these nations were,sometime ago, an integral part of India. They are all countries, that want their hundred percent population to be what their majority population are. In pursuance of this aim, they ignore what their majority population does to the minority, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists or Christians. They rape their women. Kidnap their girl children and commit unspeakable atrocities against these people, while their governments ignore these happenings. From time to time, these harassed lot, decide to run away and seek refuge in India, to avoid the persecution. Once they reach India, they remain in refugee camps and it takes them eleven long years to become naturalized citizens of India. The CAA is an act passed with overwhelming majority by the present govt to give Indian citizenship to these very persecuted hapless people.
Then what is the problem?
We have a problem, with a certain set of people, who have crossed over into India as illegal entrants, via Bangladesh. They were not persecuted. They have been demographically moved into India, with promise of employment. They follow the same religion, as the majority of the population of Bangladesh, Pakistan or Afghanistan. None of these three nations are ready to take them into their country and give them citizenship. Instead, they want India to give it to them. We also have a number of political parties, who want India to give them citizenship and employment. This is so, because these illegal entrants and their co-religionists, are a vote bank of these political parties. With this in mind they are blaming the government of the day with discrimination on religious lines.
After Amit Shah, our home minister implemented the CAA act, certain states of Bharat, such as “West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka”, are making statements that they will not allow CAA to be implemented in their states. They are all telling a lie. Because citizenship is a central subject and state government has no say, whatsoever in stopping, the issuance of citizenship to these individuals.
I am sure, you have all understood, what CAA is, and what the problem is, for people opposing the implementation of it. I can’t be any clearer than this, at the risk of being on the wrong side of law, when election code of conduct is in play.
To put it simply in Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev’s words, CAA is “Too little Compassion, Coming Too Late”.
ELECTORAL BONDS.
This was a simple, straight forward method, late Arun Jaitley invented to help business houses fund political parties during election times.
During the passage of this practice, it was hoped that:
- This would stop, corrupt political parties from collecting election funds
and shifting them away to Swiss banks into personal anonymous accounts,
after spending a small portion of it for election purposes. - This would hold political parties accountable, as the amount collected by
each political party would be known to Election Commission, and other
collecting/dispensing agencies on demanding this information. - This would also act as a check, on political parties, overspending during
elections, as the amount collected by each political party would be known
by the electoral bonds it had received, and the amounts withdrawn by
these political parties during the period of electioneering. - This would also offer anonymity to business houses funding political parties, as only the banks would know, who bought how many electoral bonds
and to whom they gave it to. This way the business houses would not be harassed and targeted, by political parties coming to power in that state or
nation.
As is true in all banking sectors, the anonymity of every customer, is the duty of the banker. Here too, the same was promised by the ruling dispensation when these bonds and its use was introduced. That promise of the bank, (State Bank of India in this case) stands compromised with these new developments.
We have the following details, made public on social media, as of now. What it represents? Which political party is wrong and which is right, I leave to the eader to judge.
Given below are political parties,the number of states they rule in India and the worth of Electoral Bonds they received.
1 Trinamool Congress 1 state 3214 Crores
2 Bharat Rashtra Samithi 1 State 2278 Crores
3 Bharatiya Janata Dal 1 State 1550 Crores
4 Dravida MunnetraKazhagam 1 State 1230 Crores
5 Y S R Congress 1 State 662 Crores
6 BJP Centre +18 states 11500 Crores
Expenditure incurred per MP by each of the political
parties is as shown below.
1 BJP 20.03 Crore/MP
2 Congress 27.3 Crore/MP
3 AITC 73.68 Crore/MP
4 BJD 70.5 Crore /MP
5 DMK 79.69 Crore/MP
6 BRS 200.43 Crore/MP
7 YSR 20.13 Crore/MP
8 TDP 110 Crore/MP
The figures given above are self-explanatory.
Each one of you are capable of drawing your own conclusions.
Major Biddanda Nanjappa,
Recipient of President’s Gold Medal, Convener FMCGT Forum.
The facts and views presented are of the author.
