By Sidharth Mishra

Of the many Yuletide memories of the national Capital, one which has a remarkable impact was to be the part of the first metro ride 18 years ago. Delhi Metro having completed 18 years of operation, is all set to step into adulthood with Prime Minister Narendra Modi scheduled to launch the driverless coaches on December 28.

The ride on the morning of December 24, 2002 on the 8.4 kilometre long Shahdara — Tis Hazari section was culmination of ‘Great Expectations’. Like Victorian novelist Charles Dickens’ novel with the same title (Great Expectations), Delhi Metro too was a runaway success, when it was thrown open for passenger service on December 25, 2002.

By Sidharth Mishra

Certainly, the farmers from the regions which ushered in Green Revolution in the 1960s, could also have been harbingers of the second green revolution. Unfortunately, that has not happened so far, leaving nation’s agriculture in a state of stalemate.       

Changing the status quo invites protest, breaking inertia leads to friction, howsoever good the intention. Same can be said about the situation arising out of the notification of the new farm laws and the consequent siege of the national Capital. As of now impasse continues with the determined protesting farmers refusing so far to give in to the allurements and pressures of the government alike.

By Sidharth Mishra

The word Pandemonium was first used by English poet John Milton in his epic Paradise Lost. Milton is rather credited with inventing the word to signify a complete disorder, noise and breakdown of protocols. Over the centuries it has come to signify wild and disorderly behaviour of the law makers and people entrusted with the responsibility of governance.

Last week in its consistent attempt to woo the agitating farmers of Punjab, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi Government summoned a special session of Delhi assembly to discuss the farm bills. This was largely done as a counter to the similar session held by the Punjab Assembly, which passed bills to counter the Central act.

By Sidharth Mishra

Ordinarily, Delhi seldom slows down because of an ongoing agitation. The life remained normal in most of the parts of the national Capital even as the North-East district was caught in a bloody riot earlier this year. Our Constitution has been described as being unitary in spirit and federal in form. As far as life and form of our national Capital goes, it’s the reverse that is unitary in form but federal in spirit.

Delhi has this capacity to work through its largely autonomous units defined by the five geographic divisions – East, West, North, South and the New Delhi. These units have been further divided for the administrative purposes. These geographical entities also enjoy distinct cultural and economic identities too. Thus, Delhi all these years managed to remain aloof to national issues being agitated at and around the Raisina Hills in New Delhi.

By Sidharth Mishra

Two famous thinkers of the last century had almost common comment to make on politics, which said, “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.” 

The first person to be attributed this quote is Sir Ernest John Pickstone Benn, a British publisher, writer and political publicist. As a civil servant in the Ministry of Munitions and Reconstruction during the First World War he came to believe in the benefits of state intervention in the economy. However, after the war, in the mid-1920s, he changed his mind and adopted "the principles of undiluted laissez-faire" which is comparable to the ideas of today’s free market economy.

By Sidharth Mishra

There is subtle political message going out from the Kisan (farmer) agitation on the borders of the national Capital. It has to do with politics of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, which is refusing to playout inside the national Capital. The decision of the agitating farmers to lay siege of the national Capital by staying put on the borders and not entering the national Capital has poured hailstorm on the plans of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government to liaison with the farmers for 2022 assembly polls in the three northern states of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

By Sidharth Mishra

Delhi is the city which travels from one crisis to another, seldom resolving either. At least that has been the story of the national Capital in the past few months, ever since the pandemic dawned during the spring of 2020.

Last week the newspaper headlines were going berserk on the fresh wave of the Coronavirus cases and the related fatalities, this week we are deluged with the information of farmers of Punjab on the march to Delhi. They are the same farmers who allegedly turned the city into a gas chamber burning parali (paddy stubble) in their fields, and now they with their ‘ominous’ presence left city’s traffic in a gridlock.

By Sidharth Mishra

As the country battles unprecedented rise in Covid-19 cases, a report submitted by a parliamentary panel has pointed that absence of adequate beds in government hospitals and absence of specific guidelines for Covid treatment resulted in private hospitals charging exorbitant fees. The panel, headed by senior parliamentarian Ram Gopal Yadav, has also asserted that a sustainable pricing model could have averted many deaths.

Now what’s a sustainable pricing model? Taking example of Delhi, the nation’s capital and also considered microsome of the country, the hospitals made hay as patients died in hundreds. Delhi in fact is third only to large states of Maharashtra and Karnataka in the number of dead Covid positive patients. Its political leadership has repeatedly failed at rising to the challenge posed by the pandemic needing Central intervention for the second time within a period of six months.