By Sidharth Mishra

This year during the Dusshera celebrations in the national Capital, something very unusual happened. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, unlike his predecessors, chose the outskirts of the national Capital over the Ramlila (ballad on life of Ram, the king of Ayodhya) celebrations in the walled city for Ravan Dahan (annihilating the demon).

Not that the traditional Ramlilas did not take place in the walled city. There were three in the Lal Qila grounds and the oldest in the neigbouring Ramlila grounds near Delhi Gate. With time these Ramlilas have come to be affiliate of one political party or the other, thus we had Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at one stage and the Congress leadership on the other.

The Prime Minister chose not to be part of the ‘political divide’ and decided to be part of a celebration in the outskirts, albeit accompanied by his party colleagues Parvesh Verma, the local MP and the Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari. The message which the Prime Minister tried giving by bringing the two leaders, rivals in the faction-ridden Delhi BJP, together was to fight the upcoming assembly polls in the city unitedly.

By Sidharth Mishra

Come November, and Arvind Kejriwal Government would be back with the much feared Odd-Even scheme of vehicle rationing on the roads of Delhi, ostensibly to reduce pollution. The move is proposed as Mr Kejriwal and his team sees ‘severe+’ pollution levels in the city following bursting of crackers during Diwali and also the effects of stubble burning in the neighbouring areas of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Western Uttar Pradesh.

Such proposal doesn’t reflect towards best practices of governance. That a government foresees a crisis, sits idle till it dawns on the city and then takes what has been named as ‘emergency measures’, definitely doesn’t illustrate for good governance. How can a government foresee a weather emergency and put people on notice for using private transport especially given the poor state of public transport. The advance notice is for the scheme, which was implemented two times earlier in 2016 and then abandoned, as there was no agreement among experts on pollution having come down despite the normal traffic having been thrown haywire.

By Sidharth Mishra

The mammoth cricket stadium at the Feroze Shah Kotla complex, which will shortly be named after one of the greatest lovers of the game Arun Jaitley, always did not wear the present elegant look. It’s only about a decade back, with Jaitley at the helm of the Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA), that the cricket ground was saved from losing its international venue status.

For several decades since its founding sometime in the early 1940s this stadium bore a very Spartan look. Then functionaries of the DDCA could never raise sufficient funds nor the wherewithal to build a new stadium at the site. The things decayed in a manner that the DDCA was put on notice about holding matches on this ground. It was only after Jaitley came at the helm that the fortunes of the ground changed.

By Sidharth Mishra

Ladakh by the recent amendment of the Constitution has been made into a Union Territory. The manoeuvre used by the Government to separate Ladakh from the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir to resolve the Kashmir crisis would not have been possible but for the valiant efforts of Indian soldiers in first defending the area from the tribal raiders in 1947-49 and later securing it for seven decades under most inhospitable situation.

Accession of Jammu & Kashmir to India and swift entry of the Indian army in the autumn of 1947 did not discourage Pakistan enough to give up its plan. Governor General Mohammed Ali Jinnah took matters in his control and supervised invasion of Kashmir by the Frontier tribesmen. In the initial months, due to winter severity, Ladakh did not get sufficient focus and was left under the charge of the soldiers belonging to the J&K State Forces of the erstwhile princely state.

By Sidharth Mishra

The 15 years that Sheila Dikshit was prima donna of Delhi politics, this former reporter had the privileged job of covering her for 14 years for The Pioneer, first as beat reporter and then for over a decade as the head of the city reporting unit. Those were the years of the BJP grounding its feet firmly in national politics and The Pioneer was its only credible sympathizer. Under the situation, it was quite a challenge to cover the most prominent Congress leader in the national Capital.

However, contrary to the expectations, Sheila Dikshit had a great traction with the newspaper and took her criticism in right spirit. It also went to the credit of the newspaper’s editorial policy, especially its editor Chandan Mitra, that he never approved of negativism in reporting and encouraged development related reports which more often than not ended up giving credit to Sheila Dikshit.

By Sidharth Mishra

Delhi has no full stops and it is not at all a static city – this was something which acted as the governing principle for Sheila Dikshit, the Congress leader who ruled the city for three consecutive terms as its Chief Minister from December 1998 to December 2013 and passed away on Saturday fighting a battle to revive the fortunes of her party as the president of its Delhi unit.

 The first reaction of people on hearing of her demise was, the city is going to miss her. She closely identified with Delhi and carried out her work with an extra-ordinary passion, never ever distracted with any ambition to look beyond the precincts of the city government.

Development of Delhi for her were defined by two parameters – make Delhi into a World Class city but also get it the tag of the Heritage City. 

By Sidharth Mishra

Last fortnight at a function organized by the Delhi Jal Board to lay foundation stone of nation’s biggest sewage treatment plant, changing political environment of the city became so visible.  Union Minister for Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawatshared dais with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, where the latter took everybody by surprise by profusely thanking the Centre for the support.

It did not stop there. When Shekhawat pointed out that all hoardings on way to the venue gave credit only to the Delhi Government whereas the project was being funded by the Centre, Kejriwal accepted the error and said credit should be given wherever it was due.

By Sidharth Mishra

The day Supreme Court appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority -- sought apex court’s intervention to save the national Capital from choking, city’s transport minister Kailash Gehlot said that the cabinet note for the free bus ride for women would be ready soon.

The aforementioned fact clearly indicates that the transport policy of Delhi Government was not directed towards strengthening the existing system but instead draining it for electoral gains. The EPCA in its report to the apex court mentioned that “The Delhi government has not added new buses into its fleet for the past four years. Delhi has 17 buses per lakh people compared to 107 buses per lakh people in Beijing. But what is also alarming is that these buses are ageing — all of DTC’s current 3,600 on-road buses are over eight years-old and it will be necessary to phase them out in the next few years.”

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal despite having failed to add even a single bus to city’s dilapidated fleet, has gone on to announce that the free rides would not be limited for women but would be extended to the senior citizens and students too. The question is that for a free ride there also has to be a bus but given the state of affairs, the public transport system in the national Capital for now was moving towards a collapse.