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Lets set aside for the time being what NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant meant when he said we are too much of a democracy. He has already clarified it in an article where he argues that he was misunderstood. He claims all he actually wanted to say was Indias reforms cant move at the same speed as Chinas because we are too much of a democracy. Perhaps he has a point there.

The real question however is not whether we believe Kant. Many think he is playing cats paw for the regime, trying to test out an argument for curbing or, to be more accurate, further curbing our democratic rights in return for what is often described as development. In todays bureaucratese that could well be synonymous with reforms.

It may be best therefore to first get our definitions right. What is this development we keep hearing about and how does it impact you and me? For the past six years we have often heard this word being bandied around. But when it actually comes to seeing it in action, there has been very little that has impacted your life and mine. Surely demonetisation was not development. Nor was the imposition of a complex GST regime. And surely not even the most ardent admirers of the BJP would describe the Ram temple as development. Nor the monstrous statue of Sardar Patel.

What is development then? The bullet train to Ahmedabad? The Central Vista project to build a new triangular shaped parliament building to replace the current one, a new residence for the prime minister and the vice president, and a few more statues to honour leaders that this regime feels are neglected by history? Or is it this new law to bring OTT services under the I&B ministry? Or the three new farm laws that farmers across the nation are protesting so vigorously against?

Or would you call the love jihad law in BJP-ruled states, development? Or the law against cattle slaughter and consumption of beef? Most of us, apart from the bhakts, are a bit confused. We hear so much talk about development but what we see are only confused, random acts of divisiveness? Yet, despite that, the BJP keeps winning elections. So clearly theres something they are doing right. Maybe its the Modi magic. Or, more likely, its their ability to cannily tap into the majoritarian mindset. So much so that I see the Congress trying to emulate that as well. The young Gandhis have by now perfected the fine art of visiting temples at election time. Does it mean they are also rooting for development?

Frankly, I am happy to concede I dont understand this. I grew up in a India where everyone was dissatisfied with the government, Congress in those days. Yet the khadi-caps managed to hang on to power for six decades. They kept inventing new slogans to win elections. From Jai Jawan Jai Kisan in 1965 to Garibi Hatao in 1971. But the promises they made remained largely unfulfilled. Till Manmohan Singh as finance minister initiated historic economic reforms in 1991. That was the first real step towards changing India.

Unfortunately, it was under the same Manmohan Singh, this time as prime minister, that the Congress saw its demise. If you ignore all the fake statistics that are constantly thrown at us, you will find UPA2 did not do badly on economic parameters. It was the scams that killed it. People were just tired of hearing about scams. And they thought that if they voted out the Congress, Modi would bring a new agenda to Indian politics, an agenda for change. It was not development they voted for. They voted for change. Change in the quality of politics.

Has that happened? Thats the real question. Not how much democracy India needs. India needs change and only greater democracy can make that happen. China is the wrong role model. Modi knows that, which is why the first overture he made was to Japan. Japan is the best example of growth and prosperity after the terrible devastation it faced in the War. Through sheer grit, it rediscovered its mojo in record time keeping every democratic institution alive, in fact further empowering them. Today its economy competes with the best in the world without taking the short cuts China does.

We are friends today with the US and Japan and the Quad includes Australia too. These are fine examples of democracy at work. Yet, funnily, when it comes to economic growth, we compare ourselves only to China which is way ahead of us in economic growth but lags way behind in nurturing democratic institutions. And we all know, which is more important.

Today our farmers are angry. Our students are unhappy. The minorities one out of every five Indians are losing faith. Our workers are rudderless. Our jobless youth are in distress. Recession stares us in the face. This is the time for consensus. Every stakeholder in the economy must be convinced of every reform. Instead, we are obsessing over all the wrong things at a wrong time in history. And no, Mr Kant, there can never be too much of democracy. Democracy is what defines our identity, has built our character, and has the potential to make us the global super power we want to be. Just get out of our way and watch where we can take this nation.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

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How much is too much democracy? - The Times of India Blog

The Electoral College casts its votes Monday, but just days earlier, more than half of House Republicans signed on to a Texas lawsuit asking the Supreme Court for an emergency order to invalidate the ballots of millions of voters in four battleground states, despite having zero evidence of voter fraud.

There is a much larger matter at play right now than whether or not Trumps tactics worked.

The Supreme Court including all three of President Donald Trumps appointees rejected the case. But one wonders whether it would have been more useful for the court to have heard the case, expose the baseless claims for the public to see, and then decided against it.

Im sure I wont find many takers on that idea, but there is a much larger matter at play right now than whether or not Trumps tactics worked. They may not have worked in the actual courts, but that might not matter as much as we want it to. A poll out Dec. 10 indicated that 77 percent of Republicans believe there was fraud in this election. And while most of the talk of fraud comes from Trump himself hes the spark the fuel is all around us. And the momentum is fueled by fringe fiction, not facts.

Months ago, I warned that congressional candidates who hold dangerous fringe views could potentially get elected. And they did. And I thought that was going to be our biggest problem moving forward candidates whipping up conspiracies to divide voters and get elected.

I failed at the time to recognize that the dangers are far greater. Since Nov. 3, elected members of the GOP and their constituents not whom youd ordinarily think of as fringe groups have pushed actual lies, setting their highly selective outrage on anyone not in favor of overturning the election, i.e. the people who voted President-elect Joe Biden in and Trump out.

Its one thing if Bidens victory had been like Trumps an electoral college win even though more people voted for his opponent. But 7 million more people voted for Biden than for Trump and of more than 50 cases filed, not one court not a single one has found a single instance of voter fraud. No multiple voting, no dead people voting. Just people not voting for Trump.

A poll out on Dec. 10 indicated that 77 percent of Republicans believe there was fraud in this election.

To these conspiracy theorists and congressional enablers, it doesnt matter that theres no evidence of voter fraud and that count after recount has shown Trump to be the loser each time. The fringe conspiracists want what Trump wants: to subvert democracy. They continue to fight for a president who himself will apparently fight for anything as long as it benefits him.

This behavior is historical. Actually, its hysterical. But not in a funny way.

Trump continues to test our norms, the Constitution and our freedoms under his manipulative, fact-free but still substantial weight. He is, after all, still the president of the United States. He empowers these fringe thinkers and they support his every perverted and unjust idea. Its a dangerous relationship that is damaging our foundations. And the most dangerous part is that this phenomenon goes beyond Trump. Hes helped ignite his base, which we will soon see outlast his presidency.

I dont know whether the fringe found Trump or Trump found the fringe, but this stuff is real. From the ridiculous but increasingly dangerous #StoptheSteal movement that is encouraging Americans to take the so-called stolen election into their own hands, whatever that means, to the consistent undermining of the coronavirus, Trump and his enablers have brought the fringe into the middle of the most important issues this nation faces.

Ali Velshi is an MSNBC columnist and the host of Velshi, which airs Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC. He has been awarded the National Headliner Award for Business & Consumer Reporting for How the Wheels Came Off, a special on the near collapse of the American auto industry. His work on disabled workers and Chicagos red-light camera scandal in 2016 earned him two News and Documentary Emmy Award nominations, adding to a nomination in 2010 for his terrorism coverage.

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If you thought Trump was the most dangerous threat to our democracy, you were wrong - MSNBC

Nearly two years after the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) saw a peaceful transfer of power to President Flix Tshisekedi following a nevertheless flawed election, numerous significant political and economic developments have transpired in the country. The presidents chief of staff, Vital Kamerhe, was convicted on corruption charges; violent conflicts have increased in the eastern DRC; civil society has mounted increasing anti-corruption campaigns; and a major political reconfiguration is currently underway that may significantly change the shape of reforms. Meanwhile, in a bipartisan letter, the U.S. Senate highlighted the need for urgent anti-corruption and electoral reforms in the country and the International Monetary Fund is considering a significant loan to stabilize the countrys economy, pending anti-corruption reforms.

On Friday, Dec. 18, the Foreign Policy program at Brookings will host a panel discussion examining the issues and the possible U.S. policy options to address them.

Viewers can submit questions via email to events@brookings.edu or on Twitter using #DRCSecurity.

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Democracy, corruption, and U.S. policy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo - Brookings Institution

How low has the Party of Lincoln fallen? In answering this question, it is instructive to look at the example of Kevin McCarthy, a seven-term California congressman who, since 2019, has served as the House Minority Leader. Until Donald Trump appeared on the scene, McCarthy wasnt regarded as particularly conservativeat least by the standards of todays Republican Party. When, in 2015, he abandoned a bid to become Speaker of the House, some Tea Party activists celebrated.

In the summer of 2016, McCarthy endorsed Trump for President, but only after the interloper from New York had sewn up the nomination. A year later, it emerged that, in June of 2016, McCarthy had told some of his fellow-members of the House Republican leadership that he believedswear to Godthat Trump was in the pay of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. When the Washington Post eventually reported about these comments, McCarthy tried to laugh them off as a joke.

The nature of the accommodation that McCarthy made with his conscience, when he jumped onto the Trump train, can only be speculated upon. Its perhaps fair to assume that he didnt realize exactly where the tracks would lead, but, given his comments in 2016, its also clear that he didnt harbor any illusions about the man he was endorsing.

In any case, after McCarthy took over as House Minority Leader, he followed Trumps wishes so slavishly that the President started to refer to him as my Kevin. On Friday, McCarthy took the ultimate Trump-loyalist move and threw his backing behind the Presidents outlandish bid to overthrow the 2020 election result. Along with a hundred and twenty-five other Republican representatives, McCarthy added his name to an amicus brief supporting the lawsuit filed by Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, and backed by seventeen other Republican state attorneys general, that requested the Supreme Court throw out the duly certified election results from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

On Friday night, the Court dismissed this scurrilous lawsuit on the grounds that Texas had no standing to challenge election results in other states. (My colleague Amy Davidson Sorkin has more on the Supreme Court ruling.) And how did McCarthy respond to this rebuke from the Court? On Friday night, he said nothing. On Saturday morning, he maintained his silence, but tweeted out a video of himself talking to Senator Tim Scott, of South Carolina, the lone Black Republican senator. The Republican Party is the Party of Lincoln, grounded in the values of freedom and equality for all people, McCarthy said in the tweet.

The gall of McCarthy and his fellow Trump toadies in the Republican Party is only surpassed by their irresponsibility and fecklessness. In taking their oaths of office as members of Congress, they swore that they would support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And, yet, here they were, supporting a Trump venture that the attorney general of Pennsylvania, in a brief opposing the Texas lawsuit, described as a seditious abuse of the judicial process. The gambit amounted to a flagrant effort to overturn the most basic liberty enshrined in the Constitution: the right of the people to choose their leaders. In the unlikely event that the lawsuit had succeeded, the country would have been plunged into chaos, and Trump would have succeeded in his reckless effort to defy the rules of democracy.

The only conceivable defense for the actions of the Republican signatories is that they supported the Texas lawsuit in the sure knowledge that it would fail. Terrified of incurring the wrath of an enraged Bully-in-Chief, they postured for him, and for the MAGA mob. But what sort of defense is this for politicians elected to a body that likes to see itself as a model for the world? A pitiful one at best, and not one that would stand up in any court of law or any court of history. One lesson of failed democracies is that when officials or institutions genuflect before would-be authoritarians, in the hope that somebody else will head them off, or control them, the results can be disastrous.

After the events of the past few weeks, it is easy to sympathize with the editorial writers of the Orlando Sentinel, who published a column on Friday expressing regret to their readers for the support they afforded one of the Trump minions, Representative Michael Waltz, of Floridas Sixth District, going into November 3rd. We apologize to our readers for endorsing Michael Waltz in the 2020 general election for Congress, the editorial said. We had no idea, had no way of knowing at the time, that Waltz was not committed to democracy.

A fair reading of the G.O.P.s record of gerrymandering and voter suppression over the past couple of decades, and its abject servility toward Trump during the past four years, is that its commitment to democracy has long been subservient to its desire to retain power. But even for an organization as tarnished as this one, the decision by so many Republican congressmen, and so many state attorneys general, to support the Texas lawsuit marked a new low.

And its not over yetit never is when you put your lot in with a pathological narcissist who has no regard for you, your party, or democracy, beyond the services that they can render to him. On Saturday morning, Trump tweeted, WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!! Later in the day, en route to the Army-Navy football game, the Presidents Marine One helicopter flew over Freedom Plaza, at Pennsylvania Avenue and Fourteenth Street, where thousands of alt-right activists were holding a Stop the Steal rally, demanding that the results of the election be overturned.

On Monday, the Electoral College will meet and officially cast its votes to elect Joe Biden, who won by three hundred and six votes to two hundred and thirty-two. But Trump isnt quite done. His eyes are on January 6th, when Congress will hold a joint session to ratify the work of the Electoral College. In the coming days and weeks, he will, doubtless, demand that Republicans in Congress reject the vote counts from a number of states, which could cause bedlam. How will McCarthy and his colleagues react to Trumps next entreaties? Anyone hoping for a belated display of character and commitment to democracy is likely to be disappointed.

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The G.O.P. Can No Longer Be Relied On to Protect Democracy - The New Yorker

WILMINGTON, Del. President-elect Joe Biden pointedly criticized President Trump on Monday for threatening core principles of democracy even as he told Americans that their form of self-government ultimately prevailed.

Speaking from his longtime home of Wilmington, Delaware, on the day thatelectors nationwide castvotes affirming his victory, Biden was blunt in critiquing the damage done by Trumps baseless allegations that the contest was stolen. Such arguments have been roundly rejected by judges across the political spectrum, including the justices at the Supreme Court.

Democracy, Biden said, has been pushed, tested, threatened. But he said it proved to be resilient, true, and strong.

The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago, Biden said. And we now know that nothing, not even a pandemic or an abuse of power, can extinguish that flame.

Biden and his team hope that the formal victory in the Electoral College combined with his record-setting 81 million-vote count will help the country unify and accept his presidency. But the challenge facing Biden was evident as many congressional Republicans, including some of the partys top leaders, refused to officially accept Bidens win. Trump, meanwhile, shows no sign of conceding.

The president-elect acknowledged an irony in the circumstances, noting that he won with the same number of electoral votes 306 as Trump did four years ago. Trump hailed that win as a landslide.

By his own standards, these numbers represent a clear victory then, and I respectfully suggest they do so now, Biden said.

A candidate needs to win 270 electoral votes to clinch the presidency.

The fact that Biden had to even give such a speech shortly after electors voted to make him the president a usually routine and even mundane step shows how extraordinary the post-election period has been, with Trump trying to thwart Biden at every turn.

Despite that, Biden struck a familiar theme of his presidential campaign, pledging to be a president for all Americans who will work just as hard for those of you who didnt vote for me as I will for those who did.

Now it is time to turn the page as weve done throughout our history, he said. To unite. To heal.

He said that was the only way the country could overcome the worst health crisis in more than a century, saying that in the face of the pandemic, we need to work together, give each other a chance and lower the temperature.

Whether his message will have any effect remains to be seen. Top Republicans have mostly continued to back Trump and his unsubstantiated claims of a rigged election and, even once Biden takes power, are unlikely to give him any of the traditional honeymoon period.

Biden recalled that one of his jobs as vice president four years ago was to formally recognize Trumps electoral victory in the Senate after 2016, and he said he expected the same process to occur this time saluting the small number of GOP senators who have acknowledged his victory. But there are many other leading Republicans who have continued to side with Trump.

Andafter losing dozens of legal challengeson the state and federal level, Trump is expected to push forward with new litigation this week. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani says he expects five more lawsuits at the state level.

Even after he takes the White House, Biden faces a narrowly divided Senate. Next months runoff elections in Georgia will decide which party controls the chamber. Theres also a thinned Democratic majority in the House as the GOP picked up seats even as Trump lost.

Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is set to hold a hearing Wednesday on election irregularities. Johnson has questioned why Congress wasnt informed that the taxes of Bidens son Hunter wereunder federal investigationduringTrumps impeachmenttrial last year.

The president wasacquitted in a Senate trialthat centered onTrumps dealings with Ukraines presidentand on whether he abused his office by seeking an investigation into the Bidens. Hunter Biden served on the board of directors ofa Ukrainian energy company.

The younger Biden said in a statement last week that he just recently learned that he was under investigation. He also said he committed no wrongdoing.

Bidens deputy chief of staff, Jen OMalley Dillon, downplayed the notion that the investigation could hamper Bidens ability to pursue his agenda.

The president-elect himself has said this is not about his family or Donald Trumps family, OMalley Dillon said. It is about the American peoples families. And I think were going to continue to stay focused on the issues that are impacting their daily lives.

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'Democracy prevailed,' Biden says as he aims to unify divided nation - pressherald.com