Singhvi's 'Better India' dream in line with PM Modi's 'New India': Naidu

Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday released Congress leader and Supreme Court advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi's book, Straight Talk. Naidu said Singhvi’s vision of a “better India” and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of a “new India” have the same intent. 

Commenting on the current acrimony between the ruling and Opposition parties in Parliament and state legislatures, Naidu said a new political approach based on “less fission, more fusion” is needed, which is the title of one of the articles in Singhvi’s book. Naidu also quoted Singhvi's endorsement of the electronic voting machines or EVMs: “... there is a near unanimity that it (an EVM) yields a remarkably accurate and virtually unassailable results.”

Many tweets for one paisa

Twitter broke out with jokes and memes as news spread about a paisa reduction in petrol and diesel prices on Wednesday after 16 days of hike. One user did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation to conclude that the savings thus incurred can help one buy a two-wheeler someday. “If you invest the 1 paise that you save in petrol every day in a mutual fund, you’ll get Rs 92,000 after 87 years using which your grandchild can buy a motorcycle. 

Do you even think about your grandchildren? No! Because you're a selfish person,” he said. “Need to rework my monthly home budget with this huge savings on fuel costs,” said another. An user, who calls himself Troll Minister, added thoughtfully: “This is a very decisive move by our sarkaar. A drop in fuel price of 2.07 Indonesian rupiahs...Modi’s visit has everything to do with this.”

Achche din data

Finance ministry mandarins have, it has been learnt, reached out to senior economists, top fund managers and finance experts urging them to comb through the data available with them to identify the “bright spots” that have characterised the four years of the current government. 

Such data would be used to highlight the achievements of the government in its reach-out programme in the run-up to the 2019 General Elections. 

An analyst rued the “hard work” he had to put in for “an entire day” to come up with some of the markers of “achche din”.