Doublespeak on Maratha Quota

Hedging Defence Bets

 The announcement of a deal between DRDO and French company Safran for the design, development and manufacture of an advanced engine for India’s Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) came days before US President Donald Trump’s additional 25 per cent tariffs were to kick in, but negotiations gathered pace much earlier. While it is difficult to say if the tenor of trade discussions or delays in supply of GE F404 engines for Tejas Mk 1A were a factor, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s meeting with a Safran delegation in early July is seen as significant and presages the AMCA contract. 

Akhilesh’s Pole Vault

The late Mulayam Singh Yadav saw relations with Congress through the prism of containing the latter’s influence in Uttar Pradesh (UP) so as to ensure SP remained the ‘secular’ choice. This helped retain the support of Muslims but the decline of BSP leader Mayawati has meant that sections of Dalits are adrift. This has encouraged a section of Congress to consider more aggressive moves in UP. SP leader Akhilesh Yadav’s ‘vault’ over police barriers during an I.N.D.I.A. protest against the electoral revision in Bihar was not an impulsive act. It was meant to ensure that SP grabbed the headlines in the protest. 

Siddaramaiah’s Banu Muddle

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s defence of the decision to invite writer Banu Mushtaq, winner of the International Booker Prize, to inaugurate the Dussehra festival on grounds that the occasion is “secular and non-religious” has given BJP another opportunity to target the leader as anti-Hindu, just as it previously did over the state sponsorship of Tipu Jayanti. The chief minister’s moves are possibly intended to defuse attempts to stir trouble against him within Congress but the manoeuvre has provided more grist to BJP’s Hindutva mill. 

Peace on the LAC

Repeated efforts by anti-China hawks and some political parties to argue India ‘gave away’ territory by agreeing to disengagement and buffer zones on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) seem to have lost steam with India and China adhering to the agreement reached last year after Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping met in Kazan. The fact remains that just as India moved back from some forward positions, China has also retreated from its so-called claim lines. The pullback and restoration of patrolling is as close to the status quo of March 2020 as possible. 

The Return of Naveen

After a recent health scare, which was apparently caused by dehydration, BJD leader Naveen Patnaik is back monitoring party activities from his residence in Bhubaneswar. BJD leaders said Naveenbabu has previously suffered from a similar incident and needs to be more careful with advancing age. But seeing him back home—the leader was never one to meet many people—is reassuring and BJD hopes to keep up the pressure on the state government amid perceptions that BJP is still finding its feet in government.