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NEW DELHI: In his 32nd edition of 'Mann ki Baat', Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday welcomed the analyses being done in various media fora about the performance of his three-year-old government+ , saying "constructive criticism" strengthens the democracy.

He said some opinion polls and surveys have appreciated his government's work+ , some have supported it while some others have highlighted the drawbacks.

Appreciating this exercise being conducted over the last one month in the run-up to completion of his government's three years on May 26, he said he believes that in a democracy, the government should be answerable.

"Constructive criticism strengthens the democracy. For a lively democracy, such exercises are immensely important," the prime minister said in his monthly radio programme 'Mann Ki Baat'.

He noted that the surveys have assessed in detail his government's performance+ on all fronts and said it was a "great exercise".

The prime minister said he believes that in a democracy, a government must present its report card to the people.

"Three years back, you (people) had given me the responsibility of the 'pradhan sevak' (prime servant). There have been several surveys and opinion polls. I consider this entire exercise healthy," Modi said.

"I thank those who have given critical and important feedback.... I greatly value such exercises... It provides an opportunity to correct the weaknesses and the drawbacks that may be there," Modi said.

From the result of these surveys, the government can take lessons and move ahead, he added.

He also conveyed his greeting on the start of Ramzan to people across the world.

He also said that people give importance to prayer, spirituality and charity during Ramazan.

"India's cultural diversity is her strength. 125 crore Indians can take pride that people belonging from all communities of the world are present in India who reverberate the message of shanti (peace), ekta (unity) and sadbhavna (goodwill)," PM Modi said in his monthly radio show.

He said that in India, people practicing idol worship, people who did not follow idol worship, atheists and people believing in god are all living in peace and harmony.

"People from all over India were imprisoned in the cellular jail. Veer Savarkar's role in India's freedom movement cannot be forgotten. His book 'Mazi Janmathep' gives insights about his struggle for freedom when he was imprisoned in the cellular jail," he said while paying tribute to Veer Savarkar.

"Our ancestors conserved nature, we must show the same compassion towards future generations," he said.

"We shouldn't see this garbage as waste but wealth. And once we start doing that we would be able to find out several innovative ways of waste management," he said.

Lauding the "clean India" campaign, he said, "Swachhata has become a mass movement today. It has generated a spirit of competitiveness between the cities. Media too has played a vital role in furthering the message of cleanliness."

He also praised environmentalist Afroz Shah and his efforts towards cleaning Mumbai's dirtiest Versova's beach.

"I heartily congratulate Afroz Shah and his entire team for their efforts in cleaning Mumbai's Versova beach," Modi said in his 'Mann ki Baat' radio address.

He lauded the effort of Shah, saying that he started cleaning Versova in October 2015 and later it turned into a people's movement.

Versova beach has now been transformed into a clean and beautiful beach, he said.

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Mann Ki Baat: PM Modi talks about India's Independence struggle, clean India and waste management - Times of India

New York Times

Checking Democracy's Pulse New York Times American democracy remains healthy, but its health has worsened for the first time in recent history, according to a new survey of 1,126 political scientists. Three-quarters of respondents said the quality of United States democracy had declined in the ...

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Checking Democracy's Pulse - New York Times

By Anbal Prez-Lin By Anbal Prez-Lin May 26 at 6:00 AM

James B. Comeys controversial firing has prompted discussions about removing President Trump from office. Reps. Al Green (D-Tex.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) have called for the presidents impeachment. In the New York Times, Ross Douthat argued that the Cabinet should invoke the 25th Amendment and declare the president unable to discharge his duties. Others have been more cautious. Impeachment would stoke, not calm, political anger wrote Fred Hiatt in The Washington Post.

How would removing Trump from office affect U.S. democracy? Would it be an exemplary act of accountability or a thinly veiled coup against an elected leader? Would it prevent major damage to the republic or push the country into political instability?

[So what exactly counts as an impeachable offense?]

Political science research and other nations experiences suggest that, without a careful process backed by a broad national consensus, removing the president would only worsen the countrys polarization.

Lets look at other nations experiences

Over the past 12 months, weve seen two presidents impeached and ousted: Presidents Dilma Rousseff in Brazil and Park Geun-hye in South Korea. Since 1992, eight Latin American presidents have been removed from office by either impeachment or declaration of incapacity. And another may be on the way: Brazils new president,Michel Temer, charged with obstruction of justice, may become the next casualty in the coming weeks.

Analysts used to believe that only new democracies are prone to presidential interruptions a term used to cover impeachments, declarations of incapacity or anticipated resignations. Many are now reassessing this assumption. Other countries may yield important lessons for the United States.

As political scientist Keith Whittington explained here this week, evidence of high crimes is never sufficient to indict the president. Political scientists agree on the conditions leading to an impeachment: recurrent media scandals, a floundering economy, mass protests and the collapse of the presidents coalition in Congress. Recent research I conducted with John Polga-Hecimovich of the U.S. Naval Academy shows that some of the factors that drive presidential impeachments are the same that once prompted military coups in developing countries: the radicalization of elites, social unrest and economic recession.

[Trump told the Russians that firing Comey took the pressure off. This is what he should have said instead.]

There is less consensus, however, on the long-term consequences of an impeachment. On the optimistic side, Kathryn Hochstetler and David Samuels have argued that presidential systems recover from this trauma rapidly. Their study of 18 countries found that presidential interruptions do not set off further government instability or reduce popular support for democracy.

Less optimistically, Leiv Marsteintredet of the University of Oslo studied14 presidential interruptions, and found that some impeachments set offa longer period of political instability. When the president has clearly violated the constitution,impeachments are self-contained events. But when legislators remove the executive in response to broader issues, like failed policies or mass unrest, the presidents ouster tends to be just the opening act of a protracted political crisis.

What can we learn from all this?

To be an effective tool of democratic accountability, impeachment must meet two important conditions:

Proper process. Impeachment is a hybrid institution, in part legal trial and in part vote of no-confidence. Presidential constitutions require that legislators produce evidence of high crimes or maladministration to impeach the president (with a trial decided by the senate or by the supreme court, depending on the country). But the decision to impeach is ultimately driven by partisan politics. During a crisis, political passions can overcome attention to constitutional niceties. If a legislature uses shortcuts to remove a president, that can have nefarious consequences for democracy.

In 1997, for example, Ecuadorans took to the streets to demand the ouster of their unpopular president, Abdal Bucaram. The opposition in congress lacked the supermajority required to impeach the president, so it falsely invoked the Ecuadoran equivalent of the 25th Amendment and, by a simple majority, declared the president mentally incapacitated. Bucaram aptly nicknamed the madman left the country. But the wrong constitutional precedent had been set. Over the next decade, Ecuador ousted every elected president.

In a republic, form is substance.

Social consensus. Corrupt presidents can be and usually are shielded from impeachment by loyal supporters in congress. Most legislators, however, abandon the executive when their constituents agree on the severity of the presidents crime. Successful impeachment movements usually involve cross-class, cross-party mobilizations demanding executive accountability.

If a nation is politically polarized, therefore, rushed calls for impeachment may not be a great idea. The presidents supporters easily dismiss evidence of corruption or abuse of power as media manipulation. Without real consensus, much of the population will see the ouster of an elected executive as an illegitimate act. Legislative leaders faced this predicament after they removed Presidents Fernando Lugo of Paraguay in 2012 and Dilma Rousseff in Brazil last year. Important segments of the population saw those impeachments merely as soft coups.

Public support for an impeachment may take a while to build. In September 1973, a survey of urban voters in the Midwest showed that two-thirds of respondents found Richard Nixon guilty in the Watergate scandal, but only one-third supported his removal from office. Not surprisingly, more than 70 percent of those who acknowledged the presidents responsibility but rejected impeachment had voted for Nixon in 1972. Scholars debated at the time whether this pattern proved that voters were too rigid. But with time and information, voters changed their minds: Nixons approval dropped precipitously, from 67 percent in early 1973 to 24 percent in mid-1974.

Legislators considering the use of impeachment or the 25th Amendment must therefore focus on the need to achieve broad political agreements in Congress and beyond. Unfortunately, only 15percentof the political scientists surveyed by the Bright Line Watch project last February believed that, in elected branches of government in the United States, majorities act with restraint and reciprocity.

[A new expert survey finds warning signs for the state of American democracy]

The experience of other countries, however, yields a clear lesson: Only civil legislators, willing to follow proper process and able to build broad consensus, are able to repair the long-term damage created by an uncivil president.

Anbal Prez-Lin is professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Presidential Impeachment and the New Political Instability in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2007). Follow him @aperezli.

This essay was produced in partnership withBrightLineWatch.org.

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How would removing Trump from office affect U.S. democracy? - The ... - Washington Post

LONDON As I strolled through Paris the other day, the air was warm, the sky was blue, and I felt like I was in the best of all possible worlds. As always, Paris looked elegant and exuded confidence and cheerfulness. France had just elected a clever, young, handsome, and brave new president, who seemed to match the citys ambience. Without much bad news to darken the day, I had every reason to walk with a spring in my step.

Of course, things could have been very different. It was just 18 months ago that a terrorist attack in Paris left 130 people dead and hundreds more injured. Last July in Nice, an attacker drove a truck through a Bastille Day crowd on the citys seafront promenade, killing 86. Not long after that, an assailant slit an elderly priests throat at a church in Normandy. And last month, just before the second round of the French presidential election, a policeman was gunned down on the Champs-lyses.

These wicked acts, stemming from a distorted interpretation of a great religion, did not stop French voters from electing Emmanuel Macron, a man who knows that vigilance requires us to respect all members of our community. To fight evil, we must reject exclusion and hate, and we must not blacken the reputation of a large segment of our society.

I was reminded of this lesson recently, on a taxi ride from central Paris to the Gare du Nord. The driver, after complaining about the competition from Uber (a familiar refrain from London taxi drivers, too), went on to denounce the world and everything in it. He claimed that globalization and mass immigration are destroying jobs, overwhelming public services, compromising French national identity, and breeding terrorists.

Needless to say, the driver had voted for Marine Le Pen although he did not look like what the National Front would call a pureblooded Frenchman. Of course, most of France voted the other way. And while the drivers grievances still have wide currency, they do not represent a coherent, fact-based approach to todays problems.

Britain faces its own terrorist threats, as we have seen yet again with the horrendous attack in Manchester, the northwestern city where my grandparents were head teachers, and where my father was born. So far, the death toll stands at 22, many of them children, making the attack on the Manchester Arena Britains worst encounter with terrorism since the London Underground bombings in July 2005, which killed 52. There have been similar but smaller-scale incidents since then. And, in previous decades, London and other cities (including Manchester in 1996) withstood attacks by Irish nationalist militants.

And yet Britons, like the French, have not panicked or responded in a knee-jerk fashion. We continue to prefer living in free and open societies, so we have always reacted with calm and measured resolve.

That resolve is one of the strengths of democracy. We will never hand the political agenda over to those who offer only simplistic slogans, crude arguments, and extreme policies. Those who want to pin their problems on the other as defined by race, ethnicity, religion, or nationality will always be in the minority. Their goal is to close hearts and minds. They have no interest in understanding the causes of violence, or in developing effective ways to address them.

The good sense of democracies is based, in part, on the understanding that country matters more than party. In democracies, effective policymaking rests on compromise and reason. Those of us who live in democracies will not be terrorized into discarding our sense of balance and moderation, because we understand something profound about most societies: life always wins over death.

Although there is such a thing as original sin the wickedness that simmers, blows up, and scars young children and their family and friends there is also original virtue, which is always present after terrorist atrocities. It is manifested in the passers-by who stop to help; in the nurses and doctors who attend to the injured; and in those who search for the lost, offer families a bed for the night, or escort people home from the scene of a mass murder.

The people who plan and commit terrorist acts will probably never learn that theirs is a lost cause. Open societies will undoubtedly have to withstand further assaults in the future. But if one thing is clear, it is that terrorists cannot defeat democracy.

In France, voters just elected a new president out of hope, not despair; and in the UK, we will soon hold another free and fair election in June. Democracy will withstand attacks like the one in Manchester; and democratic citizens will respond with courage and generosity.

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Democracy Trumps Terrorism - Project Syndicate

Kashmir is burning again! The violent aftermath of Burhan Wanis death underscores the fragility of peace in the valley. And, as usual, the anger is directed at those who bear the brunt of failed policies, mis-governance, political machinations, and pay for it with their blood: the security forces.

Soldiers who were lauded months ago for saving thousands during floods are now denigrated as sadistic torturers and killers. Students attending schools a few years ago are elevated to CheGuevaric status and goaded into martyrdom. This is a familiar and oft repeated pattern.

A young charismatic lad takes up arms after an incident with security forces. The cause gets a face to a name. He becomes the rallying point for those whose growing reputation is grudged by the state (as well as other leaders of the cause). Stakeholders ranging from terrorist outfits, Pakistani sponsors, secessionist elements, and political fringes leverage this exposure; stoking the fire, egging on the youngster and conferring him with grandiose titles. Eventually the poster boy takes one risk too many and is killed. And all hell breaks loose. Claims of human rights violations, strident demands for removal of security forces, and leaders crawling out of the woodworks professing solutions to a six-decade-old problem.Students are elevated to CheGuevaric status and goaded into martyrdom.

It is dj vu. This scripted frenzy hides the underlying dynamics of proxy war and the true motives of players far removed from brickbats, bullets, and bodies on the streets.

Kashmir is Pakistans diversion from its collapsing economy, civil-military power struggle, volatile internal dissent and most importantly, the charade of democracy its leaders have foisted on their populace. Since independence, Pakistani power play has been a cat and mouse game between the army and autocratic civilian leaders with no semblance of democracy. A comparison of the civilian-military relationship in India and Pakistan establishes the latters raison detre of keeping the Kashmir bogey alive.

The starting point of both the countries seemed alike, with respective prime ministers promising a secular democratic fabric. But that is where the similarity ended. While India was able to integrate hundreds of its states into a democratic union, through a largely peaceful process, Pakistan suffered sectarian, provincial and linguistic schisms from its inception. This was exacerbated by a leadership vacuum with Jinnahs death within a year of independence and estrangement between West and East Pakistan which began with the imposition of Urdu as the official language on a nation whose majority spoke Bengali. Widespread protests were brutally crushed by West Pakistan which culminated in the Dhaka Medical College massacre in February 1952, when protesting students were shot dead by the police.

The subsequent years saw Pakistani civil and military leadership embark on a series of blunders which included the attempt to seize Kashmir, using their trademark farce of state soldiers in the guise of freedom fighters, followed by the first of many coup attempts in 1951 and the inability to control the persecution of minorities and severe rioting. Ironically, in 1958, the civilian leadership asked the military to take over by imposing martial law. This reliance on the army to obtain power and then help retain it, is a continual phenomenon displayed by successive Pakistani politicians over the yearsfor which their civilian leadership and citizenry have paid a heavy price. Pakistani army chiefs take over reluctantly, promise speedy transfer of power to the civilian governmentand then decide to stay put in power after all. So despite the experience of Liaquat Ali Khan elevating a Brigadier Ayub Khan to the chiefs position who promptly seized power or Bhutto appointing Zia and being hanged by him or Nawaz Sharif selecting his nemesis in Musharraf, Pakistani politicians either dont seem to learn or are incapable of anything but proxy governance by the army.

Comparatively, the civil-military relationship and civilian control of governance in India has been the bedrock of its democracy. Despite severe differences between the military and civilian leadership, chequered with several instances of the latters suspicion about the formers motives and apathy towards the armed forcesthroughout our history, the Indian armed forces have stoically resisted the temptation to take matters into their hands.

Nehru for instance, was distrustful of the army, interfered in military operations, and succumbed to civilian advice in 1948 just when the army was gaining initiative and could deliver far larger gains if they were allowed to do their job. In 1962, he trusted Krishna Menons assessment over the professionalism of his army chief even when Chinese troops were killing Indian soldiers. Despite the 1962 debacle, the strength of our civil-military leadership put India in pole position during 1965 war with Pakistan and notwithstanding major differences of opinion regarding the conduct of the 1971 offensive; two of the most charismatic leaders of that eraIndira Gandhi and General Sam Manekshaw, together, delivered a stellar victory. And in every war, gains paid for in soldiers blood were frittered away by civilian leadership but the Indian armed forces deferred to their governments decision.

They stayed true to their oath of loyalty to the government of the day, even during other opportunities of national turbulence like the Emergency or traumatic tasks like Operation Bluestar or ambivalent campaigns like IPKF. Even the extreme and militarily questionable constraints placed on Indian troops of not crossing the international border during the Kargil operations was obeyed in letter and spirit. Despite systematic denigration of the status of the armed forces and the lackadaisical attitude towards long overdue promises like OROP (one rank one pension), our troops swing into action at the behest of their civilian superiorsbe it external aggression, internal security duties or aid to civil authorities.India has an army and the Pakistani army has a country.

That is the difference between India and Pakistan. The clich that India has an army and the Pakistani army has a country, aptly describes the situation.

The conflict in Kashmir needs deeper strategic understanding in addition to operational deployment of forces. As a nation we need to be aware of the root cause in the form of a failed neighbour whose civilian and military leadership needs a faade to bolster their legitimacy and mask the fact that it has been deteriorating across every social, economic and developmental metric. The irony of a prime minister who is unable to stop foreign drones or militants from killing citizens within his own country, but is concerned enough to move the UN over atrocities committed in another country, is ludicrous. Couple that with the hypocrisy of separatist leaders who extol Kashmiri youth to fight unto martyrdom while their own children are educated abroad using the funds they extort from the intimidated citizenry. Or the duplicity of leaders who demand the removal of security forces from the valley but keep asking for more troops for their personal protection. Kashmir has become a conflict economy. There are many stakeholders with vested interests in continuing the conflict. And until we recognise that realitywe will continue this endless cycle in which Indian youthboth in and out of uniform, will continue to be fodder in the Great Game.

This post first appeared on Medium. We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.

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Kashmir is Pakistan's diversion from its collapsing economy and faux democracy - Quartz