Early Times Report
Jammu, Sept 19: A high level Canadian High Commission delegation, currently on a visit to Jammu and Kashmir today called on renowned intellectual, scholar and columnist Dr Jitendra Singh and held an hour long exclusive one-to-one meeting with him to discuss a wide range of diverse subjects of national and regional importance.
The delegation comprising Head of Political and Economic Affairs, Canadian High Commission in New Delhi Johanne Forest, senior Ottawa based South Asia analyst Jawad Qureshi and senior analyst political and economic affairs at Canadian High Commission New Delhi Madhursi Das, expressed satisfaction over several inputs that they had received from Dr Singh.
Referring to the country's new emerging political scenario in the wake of Narendra Modi's anointment by the BJP, Dr Singh said it should be a matter of research why Congress is hesitant to officially declare its prime ministerial candidate 'even though in the kind of dynastic pattern known to be followed by the Congress, the name of the heir-apparent is always a foregone conclusion.'
"Is this so because there is a growing realization inside the Congress as well as outside that people of India are getting wary of feudal politics and the family charisma may not work any more," he asked and added if so this could also offer a cue for family based regional parties like the National Conference.
In the context of Jammu and Kashmir, Dr Singh said, the youth of Kashmir Valley need to be educated that they have been taken for a ride in the name of romantic slogans like "Azaadi, Autonomy, etc' which has ended up depriving them of the unlimited advantages of globalization and also of the enormous mainstream benefits available to the youth in the rest of the subcontinent.
"But for militancy and the unwarranted constitutional restrictions, the city of Srinagar would have developed today like another Hyderabad or Bangaluru," he added.
Asked about his observations over the recent Kishtwar riots, Dr Singh said, what is most worrisome is that these riots, for the first time, tended to institutionalize tacit "state sponsorship of communal violence as the administration chose to remain indifferent for hours at a stretch when selective looting and destruction of establishments belonging to a particular community was going on." |
