On 8th November 2016, Mr. Modi announced on all national television channels that 500 and 1000 currency notes would not be legal tenders from midnight. Like a thunderbolt, it struck many, from tax evading businessmen and corrupt officers stashing money in their lockers to terror funding organizations causing bloodshed and massacre with help of fake Indian currency and black money. Demonetisation jolted the nation out of its slumber after decades.

Demonetisation is the act of stripping a currency unit of its status as legal tender. The Union (Parliament) has the sole power to make laws regarding currency, coinage, legal tender and foreign exchange under entry 36 of first list of schedule 7 of the constitution. Demonetisation took place in India in 1976 as well as in 1978 when 10,000 notes were demonetised along with 1000 in 1954 and along with 1000 and 5000 by the Morarji Desai Government in 1978. This is the third time, similar decision has been taken.

The decision of Demonetisation was taken mainly because of three reasons. The first one was to tackle black money, the second was to check corruption and cash circulation and the third was to stop terror funding. Is these problems are considered in as grave manner as they really are, this move had in fact been due for a long time. In India, all sections have been accustomed to using cash for all petty transactions and even high value transactions for a long time. This has resulted in a parallel economy and has caused inflation and grave problems like insurgency, black marketing, terrorism etc. Inflation has sent the price of land and building skyrocketing and owning a house has become a distant dream for a common man.

This weapon of Demonetization shall be used to fight against undisclosed income which is converted into assets like gold and real estate. Government officers have their palm greased and the money find its way to properties usually benami. Within days on his decision on Demonetisation, our PM attacked benami properties. These properties are those that are bought by people with black money on fictitious names or names of other people but enjoyed by the black money holders. Under the Benami Transaction Prohibition Act 2016, a transaction is termed benami, if a property is owned by one and paid by another. The act prohibits recovery of the property held benami from benamidaar by the real owner. Also benami properties are liable to be confiscated by the government.

Demonetisation has severely attacked terrorism too. Where earlier the antinational elements had a free run through India’s security apparatuses, now the absence of cash will hit all terror activities that thrive on black money and fake notes for their survival. Lack of hawala transaction will hit activities of Maoist and other insurgent groups too as the stocked currency has become useless and the availability of new high-value notes is not in abundance.

Demonetisation though has multifaceted positive effects on the health of our country yet it brought hardships in the life of the common man. While black money hoarders and tax evaders are finding ways to make their black money white; a common man is still standing in long queues wasting thousands of productive hours. Besides this, the black money stashed in terms of gold, properties, foreign assets, foreign currencies and in foreign banks are still out of purview. The large fishes are at large while the small fry has been trapped. Several labourers and hawkers have lost their livelihood as there is no cash to pay them. A daily wager committed suicide as he wasn’t getting work and a few old and feeble died while waiting for their turn in queue.

No pain, No gain may be the right phrase to sum up this discussion on demonetisation. With a windfall of approximately 12 Lakh crore back to the banks and people’s support to this move of cleaning the system, Mr. Modi is raring to go ahead. Only time will tell us how this step has been taken by the history of India. Of course the government, its spokesperson and pro-demonetisation economists constantly speak of intangible long term benefits such as a move to a cashless economy and widening the tax base while the analysts are asking, “Did the achievement of this whole process merits the pain and disruption caused by the demonetisation exercise?”

Amputated limbs, headless torso, charred body, heart rending sight; our present world! We surely didn't struggle to scale the ladder of civilisation for this result. Terror had always been in this world. Organised and disorganised wars have always caused several human lives to perish. But the global and extremely organised form to terrorism aided with the lethal and sophisticated weapons of mass destruction had never been there in the past history of human civilisation.

From being savage to civilised, man adopted certain new values. These values resulted in the development of certain human tendencies which on one hand unite the people irrespective of their race, culture, caste, creed and religion; while on the other hand create danger for humanity. The former human tendency helps life blossom on this earth but the later assisted by the fanatics, and extremists equipped with the latest inventions of science and technology is posing a serious threat before the World in the form of global terrorism.

Terrorism is an act of terror which creates fear in the mind of the common people. The path resorted by the terrorists is full of bloodshed, massacre and callousness. Today terrorism has become global and its main targets are the democratic countries of the world. Since democracy is the best form of governance, so these attacks are surely deplorable. The situation worsens when some countries join hands to promote terrorism in those countries with which they don't have friendly relation. Sadly these cruel, hard hearten criminals are called freedom fighters by the terrorism promoting countries.

When we talk about terrorism, we need to understand the difference between terrorists, separatists and the naxalites as India is facing external but also internal terrorism. Although, all the three mentioned above, can be defined in three separate definitions yet to keep it simple, separatists are those who wish to get separated from a particulars country, religion or race, while Naxalities are those whose main problem is related to their economy especially the land.

The most serious threat is from terrorists aided by international terrorist organisation who commit heinous crime in the name of holy war. Though different in their form and origin, all the three sooner or later resort to grotesque murder, hijacking and serious threat to the mankind.

India has been facing the problem of terrorism since 1980s and has tried to raise the issue before all international bodies time and again but the complaints fell on deaf ears. This gigantic problem attracted the attention of the whole world only on 11 September 2001 when America was attacked. Today a huge amount of money is spent in fighting against terrorism and the citizens of every country are living in constant fear of terrorist attacks.

Whether it is India or the world, there are certain reasons behind the problem of terrorism. To deal with this problem, it is extremely essential to know the reasons, behind it. It is believed that the main reasons are poverty and backwardness. Besides these, ignorance and illiteracy are also the other causes but can poor people afford sophisticated weapons. Can illiterate people use biological weapons and latest technology? Of course not! These terrorists are neither poor nor backward. In fact, the so called global terrorists are fanatics. They use the unemployed youth to spread terrorism in the world and it is a matter of sorrow that they do so in the name of religions though all of us know that no religion preaches terrorism.

Now the question arises 'what is the solution of this problem?'

Firstly the developed countries must understand that terrorism of one country is no less severe than the terrorism of another country. So, all the terrorist organisations should be dealt strictly. Anyone found guilty of terrorism should be severely punished and adequate security should be provided to the common people. But, terrorism has another aspect also. The policies of developed countries and the inability of the United Nations in restricting them in many matters of international importance have aggravated the already volatile situation and have promoted terrorism. If ‘Might is Right’ becomes norm of life, as seen in the matter of Iraq, it will be surely adopted by one and all including the terrorist organisations.

Secondly, employment opportunities should be given to the youths of terrorism affected states and rehabilitation opportunities should be provided to those youth who were forced to join terrorist organisations due to poverty and unemployment.

Children and youths should be taught that no religion teaches terrorism and education based on modern technique should be promoted all over the world. Children should be taught the importance of tolerance and brotherhood.

This problem requires a permanent solution which demands an honest effort and not just lip service.

"There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread" -Charles Dickens.

So hungry are some people that the minute details of their bones can be easily seen as there is absolute absence of any muscles between the bones and their pale skin. They are even denied the minimum bare necessity of life. Two square meals would sound sumptuous meals to them but alas!

Even after sixty-five years of independence the stark reality is that 20 crore people go hungry every day in our country. This is outright violation of the most important fundamental right- The Right to Life. Hence the need to guarantee and secure this basic right to food which was long overdue has seen a dawn with the passing of Food Security Bill in the Lok Sabha.

Food Security Bill provides legal entitlement of cheaper food grains to 67% of the country's population. It ensures the provision of 5 kilograms of rice at Rs. 3, or wheat at Rs. 2 or coarse grains at Re. 1 per kg every month to approximately 82 crore people of India. This scheme will cover 75% of rural population and 50% of the urban population. The cost of scheme is a whopping 1.3 lakh crore rupees but all concerns about a burgeoning current account deficit and falling growth was in abeyance while the vote in favour of the bill was concluded on August 26, 2013 in the Lok Sabha.

This bill is a ray of hope for the millions of deprived and destitute who go hungry every day. Whatever question may be raised by the Opposition regarding the timing of the bill tabled, the benefits are tremendously philanthropic and humanitarian. Certain existing schemes like Antyodaya Anna Yojana (for the poorest of the poor), cheap food to 32 crore people under BPL, ICDS (for kids below 6 years) etc will be subsumed under this humungous project.

Termed as 'game changer' by UPA-2, this bill has sarcastically been termed as Vote Security Bill and ridiculed as a farce and eye wash as on one hand the Government stated that 21% of India's population is below poverty line while on the other hand this scheme will cover 67% of the population. Apart from this, this scheme will push up the Government's spending which will increase the current account deficit not desirable in the present situation of economic slump. There are also other concerns that India's procurement for the scheme will push up world's food prices in case of drought and under-production. There are certain other grey areas and missing links. States will have to identify beneficiaries. This can create problems as exclusion criteria are not clear. Centre is to share transmission and commission cost which needs to be worked out. 20% to 35% possible leakage in PDS needs to be plugged and storage capacity must be improved.

Food Security Bill may be called a small step by the Government but a giant leap towards mankind with its benign objective of wiping out hunger as well as the tears. It is for the people who are less fortunate, condemned to hunger and malnutrition. The end result of this bill is sure to bring a faint smile on the lips of a starving child, the innocent smile which would relieve the conscience of those rolling in riches, at least a little.

‘God cannot be everywhere so he created Mother’. I feel this saying is very old and we all love our mothers. Let me put it differently. ‘Angels cannot be everywhere so God created daughters.’ Strange but true, we desire for a loving mother and a beloved wife but we don’t want daughters. We worship goddesses as and kill daughters. This problem of gender discrimination has been in India and almost all the developing countries for centuries. In our country this problem is aggravating day by day and this is reflecting in the Child Sex Ratio (CSR) which is defined as number of girl per thousand boys between 0 and 6 years of age. The CSR has decreased drastically from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001 and now to 918 in 2011. This decline in CSR is a glaring indicator of gender discrimination and social mindset of Indian masses. This grey situation drew the attention of almost all the governments of India and the present NDA government under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi launched a divine program with great fanfare named ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ (BBBP) to save and empower the girl child. This program was launched on 22nd January 2015 from Panipat, Haryana. BBBP is a tri-ministerial endeavor of Ministries of Women and Child Development, Health and Family Welfare and Human Resource Development.

Through various awareness programs, the government is trying to sensitize the masses about the importance of daughters. The emphasis is to mobilize communities at ground level and bring about a change in the way the society looks at a girl child. Social media too is being utilized to its fullest to share this awareness and we know how selfie with daughters became a world-wide hit overnight.

Under BBBP Scheme, the District Tasks Force and Block Task Force have been formed to reach upto each stratum of the society and disseminate the actual motive of the scheme at a wider level. Villages too are encouraged to come up with ideas and they too are participating enthusiastically. Street plays potraying the problems of sex-selective abortions and issues related to girl child are being organized in Pithoragarh. Mansa district in Punjab launched an initiative ‘Udaan-Sapney Di Duniya De Rubaru (Udaan-Live Your Dream for One Day)’ to inspire people to educate their girl child and the Sarpanch of Bibipur was the one who came up with the idea of ‘Selfie With Daughter’. People are beaming with ideas and this initiative has been received with open arms by one and all.

Under this scheme, a strong effort is being made to save and educate a girl child. A money saving scheme called ‘The Sukanya Samriddhi Account’ has been introduced, the saving amount of which will be free from tax deduction and only the girl can withdraw the amount after she reaches the age of 18. A total of 100 districts have been identified with low CSR and ` 1 crore has been given to the villages for maintaining sex ratio. It is high time, we as a nation paid attention to this grave problem. The government is doing the best it can but we, the common masses, need to introspect. Are we ready to change?

No country in this world has reached the Developed Nation’s Status if the women folk of that nation are not equal partners of their male counterparts in every walk of life. Educated and financially independent women add to the strength of nation but we as a nation is struggling to fix the CSR and it is a distant dream for us to bring the women folk at par to the men of the country. The initiative of Modi government at such a large scale and with so much of enthusiasm can do wonders if we go strong towards implementing this initiative at the grass root level of the country and let the girl child live and prosper and spread wisdom and knowledge for if you educate a man, you educate a man but if you educate a girl you educate generations to come. Let her live at least. Life finds its own way to flourish.

“A country that needs to be taught where to go for toilet, wants to go Digital” a ridicule remark by many. Really it needs guts to talk about digital India in a country where more than three hundred million Indians do not have even electricity facility.

The PM of India on 1st July 2015, announced to go digital. A past master in statesmanship, PM Modi, didn’t even bat an eyelid before announcing this initiative to connect people of the rural and urban India. This initiative aims to make India a better governing place facilitating Indians with electronic government services, reducing paper work, improving work efficiency and saving time. This ambitious project will transform India into a complete digital country with efficient and transparent e-governance.

Digital India is a dream wherein country is to be empowered with digital infrastructure and services, online availability of information and integration of many departments for hassle free e-governance. Digital India campaign aims at ensuring the broadband highways and universal access to mobile phones. It not only aims at e-governance but also ensures more IT jobs for the general public. This program will be implemented in phases till 2019 and will be monitored by the Digital India Advisory Group chaired by the Ministry of Communication and IT.

This initiative includes plans to connect rural India with high speed internet network. Under this visionary program a two way platform will be created where the service providers and consumers shall be benefitted. It will include inter-ministerial e-governance connecting services like public health care, education, housing, banks etc. This program will act like an umbrella program covering several departments.

This highly ambitious program needs strong pillars. The first requirement is that all the people of India, even of the remotest villages, must have universal access to mobiles and high speed internet. Broadband services will have to be made available to 2.5 lakh villages and 400 thousand public internet access points will have to be created. Around 2.5 lakh schools, all universities and public places must have wi-fi hotspots. Success of e-governance (Reforming govt. through technology) and e-Kranti (electronic delivery of services) are must for this program to see the daylight. A wonderful thing about this project is, it may bring smile on the face of unemployed youths due to huge possibility of job opportunities in India.

Besides this every Indian citizen can avail himself of a digital locker facility which will help him to store important document like PAN card, Passport, Marksheet and degrees. The digital locker provides a dedicated personal storage space in the cloud to citizen linked to their Adhaar Number. Whether this program turns into reality or remain an illusion, time will tell but the government has taken a giant leap forward to transform the country into a digitally empowered one.

Hurdles have started obstructing the path of this program. To start with not a single telecom operator or industry house has signed up to partner the ‘National Optical Fibre Network’ (NOFN) program. NOFN is responsible to lay nationwide optical fiber framework to connect all the Gram Panchayats within three years. Infact this program must be called ‘Digital Bharat’ program because we need to connect with the rural parts of India. Laying optical fiber cables is just one of the challenges; the gigantic one will be to ensure functional broadband points at each panchayat, distribution of internet services and finally their usage by the rural folk.

Digital India reflects out of the box thinking of the present government. The beauty of a natural digital platform is transparency that puts more information in public domain and doesn’t hide anything. This digital world is going to be a part of our life. In near future and whether we like it or not we will be in the flow of this digital river.

One country, two laws, two ways to treat the citizens of the same nation, weird, shocking but true. India, a country ruled by the Constitution of India, the Acts enacted by Parliament as well as the Personal Laws. A need for single law for the whole of nation was felt while making the constitution itself and article 44 of the constitution itself says that the state stall endeavor to secure for the citizens a Uniform Civil Code throughout the territory of India.

Uniform Civil Code means that all citizens of India will be governed by the same set of ivil laws in matters of marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption, inheritance etc. It is to note here that as per the Hindu Marriage Act, a male is punished with an imprisonment of seven years if he brings in a second wife, but a male is allowed as per the Muslim Personal Laws. The laws for divorce is also different for both the communities, however, it’s been regularized as per the latest Supreme Court judgment, wherein talaq now requires scrutiny by the Court of Law. Similarly whereas Hindus have a comprehensive Act enacted on adoption this concept is not recognized by the personal laws of Christians and Parsees.

In 1985, the Supreme Court reminded the Parliament in very strong terms to frame a Uniform Civil Code in Shah Bano case. In this case a very poor muslim woman claimed maintenance from her husband u/s 125 of CRPC, after she was divorced by her husband. The Supreme Court held that she did have such a right and observe that even the Quran imposed an obligation on a muslim husband to make a provision for his divorced wife. The response to this judgment was strong and reactionary. Strong protests and disturbance erupted and the anger flared up. To mollify the anger of the minority, the govt. led by Prime Minister Late Rajeev Gandhi immediately sprung into the action and the Parliament passed the Muslim Women’s (Protection of Rights in Divorce) Act 1986, which nullified the decision of SC passed in Shah Bano’s case. The second case when the SC again strongly reminded the parliament the need of Uniform Civil code was in Sarla Mudgal vs. Union of India, when in question on the legality of the second marriage of a hindu husband after getting converted into Islam was in question. The court decided against the legality of such marriage and strongly recommended the necessity of the Uniform Civil Code.

Uniform Civil Code is guided by the basic ideology of equality and equal protection of laws enshrined in our constitution but this issue has become controversial because of two reasons. Firstly it touches the personal laws of different religions and secondly because different political parties use it for their political mileage and make it more controversial and then an unending acrimonious debate on this issue starts. One must understand that Uniform Civil Code is not a weapon directed against any particular community. It is simply a code that puts all the citizens of India irrespective of their caste, religion or gender under one umbrella when the constitution of the nation guarantees equality. Allowing discrimination on the ground of religion and gender is totally unconstitutional, unethical, unwanted, unwarranted and unlawful.

Childhood memories are engraved in our mind, heart and soul. Some lines stay there forever and one such tag was ‘Made in India’. Usually on most of our things, we had this line printed and then came a time when we grew up. We then got colored in the culture of malls and international brands and then ‘Made in UK’, ‘Made in USA’ and certain international brands superseded ‘Made in India’. The youths today are flamboyant and like to show off the tags of international brands on their shirt, jeans, and jackets and on every small thing they buy or use.

On 25th September 2014 the PM Narendra Modi launched the Make in India program. The ‘Make in India’ has not only its Tense changed, but also the attitude. This initiative ‘Make in India’ emphasizes to transform India into a global manufacturing hub. It is a powerful galvanizing call to business leader of the world to come and invest in India. This slogan is an inspiring call to all global business leaders by the government of India with a promise to facilitate the growth of the companies they bring into India. The logo of ‘Make in India’ a lion made of gear wheels, reflecting the government’s vision of manufacturing India. This initiative is based on 4-pillars:

1. New processes that would replace outdated policies decade old long procedures and red-tapism 2. New infrastructure that will comprise smart cities with state-of-the-art-technology 3. Identification of new sector to attract FDI in them 4. A new mindset where the government won’t be a regulator but rather a facilitator to woo global manufacturing giants to invest in India.

Make in India is the single largest manufacturing initiative undertaken by a nation in recent history. It has been built by collaborative effort. The department of industrial policy and promotion initiated this process by inviting participants from union ministries, secretaries and various knowledge partners. Various sectors have been opened up for investment and sectors like defense, railways and space have also been open for FDI. Make in India has to be a movement rather than an initiative to be successful in a policy-ridden country. It has to be beyond full-page colored advertisements. It must be informative and must inspire and infuse confidence in the business world, inspiring them to become potential partners of the Indian business communities and reforms.

Make in India till now has been lauded by the manufacturing world. The government within a short span of time has replaced obsolete obstructive framework of the past and has replaced it with user-friendly system to drive investment and increase in FDI. Till March 2016, 44% (percent) increase in FDI equity inflows was seen. The rise in FDI points towards stronger investors’ interest in India on the back of robust economic growth. Higher inflows also suggest that the government’s liberal policies are bearing fruits.

Today India’s credibility is stronger than ever. There is a visible enthusiasm, momentum, energy and raring to go attitude in the business world. India has opened its investment doors and world’s largest democracy is well on its way to become world’s most powerful economy.