The past, a shadow of memories,

Lengthens with passing days,

Etched deep within the weary hearts,

Where time’s tapestry forever sways.

The veterans wait at Twilight hour,

A silent vigil they faithfully keep,

With weathered hands and souls of steel,

In memories profound, they softly weep.

As the sun surrenders to the night,

Stars emerge with twinkling grace,

Their thoughts drift back to battles fought,

Each line etched on their weathered face.

The echoes of war, a haunting score,

Resound through their fragile frame,

Yet, through the pain and sacrifice,

Their courage burns, an eternal flame.

Time so stealthily takes away,

The vivid hues of battles fought,

As memories fade into the mist,

They find solace in dreams, dearly sought.

Into the arms of sleep, they surrender,

A respite from the shadows’ might,

When darkness veils the world in hush,

They find solace in dreams, so bright.

In dreams, they walk on hallowed ground,

With comrades lost but not forgot,

The echoes of their youthful days,

A symphony within their thoughts.

So, let the night embrace them gently,

As they lay their burdens down to rest,

For in the realm of dreams, they find,

A sanctuary, where their spirits crest.

When it gets real dark, my friend,

Remember their sacrifice and might,

Their legacy, a beacon of hope,

Guiding us through the darkest night.

In their stories and their pain,

We glimpse the cost of freedom’s fight,

May their memories forever live on,

Our hearts cherish their valor bright.

- Lalit Shastri

Lalit Shastri, Editor-in-Chief Newsroom24x7 delivered the keynote address on "State of Bureaucracy" at a brainstorming session of Indian Institute of Public Administration at the State Academy of Administration in Bhopal on Saturday, 27 May 2023.

Saturday, 27 May 2023: The Opposition parties are creating unnecessary controversy over the 'Sengol', the historic symbol of authority, righteosness and justice with fairness from Tamil Nadu, that will be installed in the new Parliament building during its inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday 28 May 2023.

Sengol is a 5-foot long, 2-inch thick gold-plated mace that was handed over to the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru as symbol of power. on 14 August 1947, two sannyasis traveled to Nehru's residence from Tamil Nadu and presented him Sengol.

Near midnight that same Day, Prime Minister Nehru delivered his historic speech to the nation in the Constituent Assembly Hall - "Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny...."

It's a entirely a different matter that this Sengol was later shifted an kept at Allahabad with a placard describing it as a walking stick.

While many opposition parties and their leaders are describing the Sengol as a relic of monarchy and "Manuwadi" tradition, one would like to draw attention to the presentation of the mace i.e., "Adhikar Dand" by the then President of India Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma to the Madhya Pradesh Assembly Speaker Shrinivas Tiwari during the inauguration of the new Assembly building in August 1996. The President said that our Parliamentary system is based on tradition just like the British Parliament. The Adhikar Dand, he said is not a symbol of monarchy but a symbol of parliamentary democracy. The Parliament and Legislature draw their power from the people whose representatives sit here. The Arth Dand symbolises the right path, he had added. At this, Congress leader Digvijay Singh was the State Chief Minister.

Exclusive Interview: Pratish Pathak, Deputy Director Department of Public Relations (Retd), Madhya Pradesh.

Renowned conservationist and journalist Lalit Shastri talks to Vivek Trivedi. Shastri underscores the need to conserve and protect the Central Indian Highlands as a perfect tiger habitat.

A Twitter account of Nishat motors - a Hyundai dealer in Pakistan with the handle @hyundaiPakistanOfficial had posted a message supporting what they call 'Kashmir Solidarity' day with the message: "Let us support the sacrifices of our Kashmiri brothers and stand in support as they continue to struggle for freedom".

In India, there is total outrage over the twitter post by the Hyundai dealer in Pakistan. #BoycottHyundai is trending on Twitter in India. People in India have bombarded the social.media with messages asking everyone to go for total boycott of Hyundai cars in the country.

To douse the fire generated by the the twitter handle @PakistanHyundai,

Hyundai India said in a statement

"Hyundai Motor India has been committed to the Indian market for more than 25 years now and we stand firmly for our strong ethos of respecting nationalism.

The unsolicited social media post linking Hyundai Motor India is offending our unparalleled commitment and service to this great country. India is second home to the Hyundai brand and we have zero tolerance policy towards insensitive communication and we strongly condemn any such view.

As part of our commitment to India, we will continue our efforts towards the betterment of the country as well as its citizens. "

After the matter has flared up, the controversial post is now floating freely in a photo format on social media. @PakistanHyundai account of the Hyundai dealer in Pakistan says - its "Tweets are protected -  Only approved followers can see @PakistanHyundai’s Tweets."

Sunday night, 6th January 2022, Ashutosh Soni, an Indian citizen tweeted

"I booked #Hyundai Verna a month ago & it was due to be deliver this month but after seeing #HyundaiPakistan post, supporting separatism in #Kashmir,India, cancelled the Verna & called the Honda outlet and taken the delivery of Honda City today itself.

That's it he went on to underscore with the hashtag

 #BoycottHyundai

Lalit Shastri Speaks:

Economic Times, today 28 Jan 2021, has aired concern and at the same time shared optimism over Air India's new journey to return to its lost glory under the Tata Group. The newspaper says the airline under the new ownership will be fraught with issues such as older aircraft, inferior cabin products and human resources. The concern notwithstanding, the ET report also points to experts and its global competitors who visualise that the airline would become a challenger in the international space.

Now let's go back in time and do a postmortem of things that were responsible for Air India going into a nosedive and finally the disinvestment of the national carrier.  Coming to the issues of older aircraft and inferior cabin products  -  one cannot ignore the role of former Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel during UPA-1 and 2. 

The moment he became the Civil Aviation Minister in 2004, Praful Patel spearheaded the decision to merge the two airlines – Air India and Indian Airlines – and gave a huge order to purchase aircraft – both to Boeing as well as Airbus.

Of the eight Boeing 777-200LR acquired by Air India after Patel took over, five of these grossly under-utilised aircraft were sold to Etihad Airways in December 2013 as a part of the “financial restructuring” exercise.

By mid 2017, CBI registered three FIRs against Air India and others. The first case was registered under Section 120-B read with 420 of Indian Penal Code and Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 against Air India, “unknown” officials of Union Ministry of Civil Aviation and others to investigate the allegations relating to purchase of 111 aircraft for national airlines costing about Rs. 70,000 crore to benefit foreign aircraft manufactures. Such a purchase caused an alleged financial loss to the already stressed national carriers.

The second case got registered under Section 120-B read with 420 of PC and Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of PC Act, 1988 against “unknown” officials of Ministry of Civil Aviation, NACIL, Air India and private companies and unknown others to investigate the allegations of leasing of large number of aircraft without due consideration, proper route study and marketing or price strategy. It was also alleged that the aircraft were leased even while aircraft acquisition programme was going on.

The third case was registered under Section 120-B read with 420 of IPC and Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of PC Act, 1988 against “unknown” officials of Ministry of Civil Aviation, National Aviation Company of India Ltd. (NACIL) – the entity formed by the merger of Air India and Indian, Air India and other unknown private persons and companies to investigate the allegations for giving up profit making routes and profit making timings of Air India in favour of national and international private airlines causing a huge loss to the national carrier.

A Preliminary Enquiry was also registered against unknown officials of Ministry of Civil Aviation and unknown others to enquire into the allegations relating to the issue of merger of the two national carriers -Air India and Indian Airlines – causing loss to the national exchequer.

What is the outcome of these FIRs and Enquiry, no body knows.

Lalit Shastri Speaks Up: When Chattisgarh was formed, Ajit Jogi was elected as the Congress Legislature Party leader and so he became the first Chief Minister of the new State carved out of Madhya Pradesh. Immediately after the Congress Legislature Party election at the Raipur Circuit House, Congress observers Prabha Rao and Ghulam Nabi Azad, both AICC general secretaries, along with MP Chief Minister Digvijay Singh drove to the farmhouse of another Congress senior Vidya Charan Shukla to placate him as he was also in the race for the CM's post. As Bureau Chief of The Hindu, I could smell the possibility of high intensity drama at Vidya Charan'e place and hence had taken position right there. When the Congress leaders' car entered the sprawling property and stopped at the main entrance, a huge mob of VC suporters swooped on it. I was an eyewitness to what followed. They pounced upon the Congress leaders as they came out and.gave a thrashing to Ghulam Nabi Azad and also Digvijay Singh, whom everybody calls Diggi Raja. After the situation had normalized and there was general calm, a number of journalists and TV reporters descended at VC's place. When a journalist asked Digvijay Singh whether or not there was any violence, he replied in the negative. At that moment, I was standing just besides Digvijay Singh. Pointing to the torn side pocket of his kurta, I had asked him, "how did this happen"? And he had responded by saying "oh, it got stuck in the latch when I was entering this place."

Later, when a TV reporter took my bite, I had summed it up in a single sentence by observing: " Aaj to Ghulam our Raja dono pite"  (the slave and the king both got roughed up today).

Lalit Shastri Speaks: On 73rd Republic Day, no one has been given Bharat Ratna - the highest civilian honour - by the Modi government. Rajiv Gandhi was given this honour posthumously in 1991 by the Congress government led by PV Narasimha Rao. Rajiv's mother Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister of India at the time of receiving the award in 1971 after creating the Hydra headed monster of Bhindrawala, causing the death of countless hindus at hands of the Khalistan terrorists but riding on the crest of popularity post Bangladesh War. Before her, Jawaharlal Nehru, her father, who was less of a socialist and more of communist and had taken the short cut for building heavy industry by wooing the Russians and propagated the theory of Panch sheel only to be stabbed by China with Russians no where near to help when China attacked India. Very early in the day, even before he could pass the acid test, Nehru was a man in hurry and  had awarded himself the Bharat Ratna in 1955. The nation should not forget and I am making it a point to say this as public memory is short. It was Rajiv Gandhi who had sent the IPKF to Sri Lanka and caused the death of hundreds and hundreds of our soldiers. How can one forget the Sikh massacre, following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984. That's when Rajiv Gandhi, who got catapulted as PM demonstrated how insensitive he was towards the Sikhs, with his remark - "When a big tree falls, the earth shakes". This is what he said on the mass slaughter of Sikhs in Delhi. 

In mid-1988, the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) had launched a separatist insurgency for independence of Kashmir during Rajiv Gandhi's tenure as PM and this created the situation for ethnic cleansing of the Kashmir valley on radical religious grounds that culminated with the slaughter, rape and exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from Kashmir in January 1990 just after Gandhi had lost power. 

In 1985, drawing attention to the menace of corruption and lack of accountability in terms of those holding public offices, Rajiv Gandhi had said that of every rupee spent by the government, only 15 paise reached the intended beneficiary. His message, awareness and concern about the malaise notwithstanding, the travesty is that even after winning a 2/3 majority riding on the crest of a sympathy wave created by Indira Gandhi's assassination, Rajiv lost power before the full term and was defeated in the election that followed due to the Bofors scandal. 

The Bofors scandal relates to illegal kickbacks paid in a big deal for the sale of field howitzer guns between the Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors and India when Rajiv Gandhi was PM. 

Also, how can one cannot forget the shahbano case, the worst surrender to the forces of reactionary religious fanatics  - only for the sake of vote bank politics.

India became a republic on 26th January 1950. Today, in year 2022, we are celebrating the 73rd  Republic Day.

In the historical perspective, the concept of republics in ancient India is much older than that of Greece or Rome.  Mahabharata, Arthashastra and works of Panini, Katyayana and Patanjali provide us information about these republics.

Reference of Ganas is found in Pāṇini’s works and Naradasmriti. 

Ganas are also referred to in the Rig Veda in Mandala 3 Hymn 26, Verse 6, where there is reference to assemblies of warriors, when they say व्रातं व्रातं गणम् गणम्

. In Chapter 107/108 of Mahabharata’s Shanti Parva, there is a detailed narration about the features of republics (called ganas) in India. It

  states when there is unity among the people of a republic that republic becomes powerful and its people become prosperous and they are destroyed only by internal conflicts between the people.

It shows that in ancient India there were not only kingdoms (like Hastinapur and Indraprastha) but also regions or ganas where there was no king but a republic.

Sangam literature of Tamil dating back to 300 BCE to 300CE describes the offerings for Ganas 

There is also historical information about the Ganarajya of ancient India provided by the Greek writers for north-western part of the Asian Sub-continent, and the Buddhist works for the north-eastern region of Bharatvarsh. Republics flourished mainly in north-western and north-eastern regions of India from 600 B.C. to 400 A.D., according to these texts.