A selection of the best news reports, analysis and opinions published by ThePrint in the past week.
BJP is playing with a fire that doesn’t distinguish between Muslim & Hindu
Assam will be a key issue for the BJP in 2019. But it could end up as a toxic cocktail that targets Hindus as well, writes Shekhar Gupta in his weekly column ‘National Interest’. He argues that like demonetisation, the Shah-Modi has taken big risks with the NRC experiment. It’s possible that things will remain calm, but if they don’t, there could be dangerous consequences.
We analysed 1,000 BJP leaders & found the party remains a Brahmin-Baniya club
An in-depth analysis of the caste profile of the BJP’s organisational structure by Ruhi Tewari and Pragya Kaushika has found that over three-fourths of the party’s office bearers at the national level are upper caste and over 60 per cent of its national executive is drawn from the general category. General category members also account for 65 per cent of its state unit presidents.
Even in its lower rungs, most leadership roles are with the upper castes — 65 per cent of the BJP’s district presidents across the country are from the general category.
The IAS has thinned at the top of the bureaucracy under the Modi government
Just 11 IAS officers have been empanelled by the government this year for joint secretary posts, down from 87 officers in 2014, finds Sanya Dhingra. The government, instead, appears to be relying on other services — the Forest Service, Revenue Service etc. — for officers to fill these posts.
IITs, IIMs, NITs have just 3% of total students but get 50% of government funds
The remaining 48.9 per cent of higher education funds have gone to 865 institutions that are home to 97.4 per cent of the country’s students, reports Kritika Sharma. Educationists and policy-makers blame the lop-sided approach on the government having created a kind of hierarchy within the education system.
For lateral entry, Modi government struggles to get IAS-level quality candidates
The Narendra Modi government has received just about 4,000 applications for its scheme proposing lateral entry to 10 joint secretary posts, reports Amrita Nayak Dutta. But it has not received enough top quality applications from candidates of eminence — those who are well-known experts in their respective fields.
Is Priyanka Gandhi the greatest victim of patriarchy in Indian politics?
Shivam Vij writes that from her few public appearances, Priyanka Gandhi appears to be a smarter politician than brother Rahul. She’s a better speaker, especially in Hindi, more rooted, more natural. She reminds people of Indira Gandhi. Nobody says Rahul reminds them of even his father Rajiv. Priyanka appears to be more aggressive, more political. And yet, there are still no signs of a front-facing role for Priyanka.
Blood donation is praised but not breast milk donation. These brave Indian moms ask why
Medical experts around the world insist that a mother’s milk is the only kind babies should be fed for the first six months. Milk banks are the dairy equivalent of blood banks, where mothers with breast milk to spare make a donation to help those in need, Prerna Chatterjee and Shahbaz Ansar report. These mothers also try to deconstruct the taboo around breast milk donation.