Modi remains popular: poll

‘We’re praying’ ... no action on smog this year

NEW DELHI, Nov 16, (RTRS): Nearly nine out of 10 Indians hold a favourable opinion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and more than two-thirds are satisfied with the direction he is taking the country, a Pew survey has found, two years before he heads into a general election.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition won the biggest parliamentary majority in three decades in a 2014 election and the poll by the US-based research centre showed that his personal ratings remain high.

Critics have accused hardline Hindu groups linked to the ruling coalition of promoting a partisan agenda, including targeting minority Muslims, since he came to power.

They have also blamed Modi for slowing economic growth and for failing to generate the hundreds of thousands of jobs needed for young people joining the workforce each month.

But the Pew poll found that 88 percent of Indians held a favourable view of Modi, a shade higher than the 87 percent who gave him a thumbs-up in 2015, a year after he swept to power promising to transform India into a high-growth economy.

Such high ratings are unusual for political leaders three years into office in south Asia, where governments are more often voted out than retained as people become frustrated with broken campaign promises.

Modi’s favourable rating is 31 percentage points higher than that of Sonia Gandhi, the leader of the main opposition Congress party, and is 30 points more than that for her son, Rahul Gandhi, who is expected to take over the party leadership. “Three years into Modi’s five-year tenure, the honeymoon period for his administration may be over but the public’s love affair with current conditions in India is even more intense,” Pew said in comments on its findings.

The survey was conducted in February and March, a few months after Modi withdrew most high-value bank notes in a shock move aimed at illegal wealth, but which put millions of people in difficulty as cash was sucked out of the economy.

Modi defended the measure as an attack on the rich hiding their wealth from the taxman and said gains would come to the poor.

Economic growth eased to a three-year low in the June quarter and experts said

announcement was a desperate attempt to “hoodwink” the council. part of the reason was that the withdrawal of most of the currency had hurt consumer demand in a largely cash-driven economy.

A poorly implemented goods-and-services tax that went into effect in July has further unsettled small businesses, many of which are part of the bedrock of the BJP’s political base.

But the poll found that more than 80 percent of those surveyed said economic conditions were good, up 19 percentage points since just before the 2014 election.

“Overall, seven-in-ten Indians are now satisfied with the way things are going in the country. This positive assessment of India’s direction has nearly doubled since 2014,” Pew said.

The next general election is due in 2019. But several states are voting for new assemblies over the next few months including Modi’s home state of Gujarat.

As pollution level climbed to 12 times above the recommended limit this week in India’s capital, government officials said they knew what was needed to control the smoky haze, but nothing would be done, at least this year.

A major source of the smog at this time of year across northern India, including New Delhi, is farmers burning the stubble of the previous crop to prepare for new plantings in November.

An estimated $600 million is needed to provide farmers with alternatives, but the Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and opposition parties in power in New Delhi and nearby Punjab states are squabbling over who will pay, said three federal government officials who have been briefed on the situation.

“Nothing more is likely to happen this year,” said one of them. “We’re now praying. Only God can save us.”

Pollution

The official said he had bought pollution masks for his family and installed air purifiers at his home in New Delhi, now the most polluted city in the world, according to the Brookings Institute. The city is home to more than 20 million people.

A spokesman of the federal environment ministry declined comment on federal and state governments bickering over funds to tackle the problem of stubble burning.

He said the AP report was the reason the government “decided to go and sign this

People mourn the death of a police officer and his family members, at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan on Nov 15. Gunmen riding on motorcycles opened fire on a car carrying a deputy superintendent of police and his wife, son and daughter,

killing them on the spot. (AP)

The provincial leaders of New Delhi and neighbouring Haryana states, after exchanging barbs on Twitter for days, agreed on Wednesday on measures to control the smog — in 2018.

As a thick blanket of haze settled over parts of northern India, including the capital, over the past few days, the official response to what has become an annual phenomenon has been marked by paralysis and lack of ownership, interviews with government officials show.

It’s not just the crop burning — a combination of industrial smog, vehicle exhaust and dust envelop the region every year as winter approaches and wind speeds drop. It’s been particularly bad this year with levels of PM 2.5, tiny particulate matter that reaches deep into the lungs, climbing to over 600 last week, according to a US Embassy measure.

The upper limit for healthy air is 50, the government has said.

Respiratory diseases killed about 10 people a day in the year to March 2017 in the national capital region, according to the health ministry. The World Bank estimates pollution cost the country as much as 7.7 percent of the GDP in 2013.

In 2015, Modi launched the first national air quality index in New Delhi and promised to take steps to clean the air.

Authorities temporarily banned dieselrun power generators, construction, burning of garbage and plying of trucks with non-essential goods, but construction and truck movements were allowed to resume on Thursday as pollution levels dropped.

In recent days, authorities also began to use fire engines to spray water over parts of the capital hoping it would help settle the dust. But the steps have largely proved ineffective.

“We’ve tried our best to tackle the situation, but as policymakers we’ve failed to address the main problem of stubble burning,” the government official said.

It’s not a new problem — it happens each year after mid-October when farmers start harvesting summer crops in the northern states of Punjab and Haryana.

With rising labour costs and a short window to plant the next crop, most farmers burn the stubble and straw in their fields to clear them for the next planting.

Since October, more than 40,000 fire incidents have been recorded in Punjab, as farmers disposed of nearly 20 million tonnes of rice waste, environment groups said.

protocol immediately.” (AP)

Police family gunned down:

A senior police officer and three of his family members including his wife and son were gunned down by unknown assailants in Pakistan’s southwestern city of Quetta Wednesday, police said.

The attack, which police say was targeted, comes a week after another senior officer was killed in a suicide attack in the city.

“Unknown assailants sprayed bullets on the vehicle of acting Superintendent of Police Muhammad Ilyas”, senior police official Abdul Razzaq Cheema told AFP.

He said the officer, his wife, son and granddaughter were killed in the attack.

The incident was confirmed by other local police officials.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack but militant and separatist groups have targeted police in the province in the past.

Quetta is the capital of Balochistan province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan. It is Pakistan’s most restive region, afflicted by Islamist militancy, sectarian violence, and the separatist insurgency.

Earlier on Wednesday, officials recovered the bullet-riddled bodies of 15 illegal migrants near the Iranian border. (AFP)