"Putin is brutal," says Biden & floats 'War-Crimes' trial ::::: Babus caution PM about 'politics of Freebies'

Secretaries caution PM about ‘politics of Freebies’, cite Sri Lankan crisis

New Delhi: The ‘Sri Lankan crisis’ has certainly thrown up a lesson for authorities in India, and a section of mandarins has alarmed Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the politics of freebies in some states.

The issue was flagged off at a high-level meeting convened by the Prime Minister on Saturday (April 2), wherein officials reportedly even said that such syndromes could precipitate ‘Sri Lanka type economic crisis’ in many states.

Punjab, where AAP won recently, is one such state. The newly installed Punjab government headed by Bhagwant Mann has already requested the centre to provide special assistance of Rs 50,000 crore to fulfil some of the election promises.

Some announcements made by the AAP regime in Delhi and respective regional parties in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal are understood to be unsustainable and threaten to put financial prudence

into jeopardy.

Prime Minister Modi has been interacting with secretaries and senior officials from time to time since 2014 and is taking feedback on governance.

The AAP had promised 300 units of free power to every home in Punjab if it won the 2022 polls. The Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi is already providing 200 units of free electricity to each family. 

The AAP also promised ‘free money ‘to all Punjabi women, regardless of their financial situation or needs. In Delhi, the AAP regime has announced free bus travel for women.

It was pointed out that such measures also prohibit effective work in important social sectors like health and education.

In the case of Delhi, budget proposals called for Rs 3,227 crore for the energy sector for 2021-22, of which Rs 3,090 crore was only for power subsidies. This was a whopping 96 per cent of the total allocation for the sector and nearly 4.5 per cent of the whole budget.

The state of West Bengal has a big-time fiscal crunch, and for many years, the Trinamool Congress government has been seeking a moratorium on loans it took.

Nevertheless, populism and freebies announcements peaked during the 2021 assembly polls.

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee is so excited about freebies politics that in February, during Uttar Pradesh polls, she even advised Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav to add a monthly income incentive for women in his manifesto, on the lines of the Lakshmi Bhandar scheme.

Perhaps she forgot to tell Akhilesh that the West Bengal government has a cash crunch, and her dispensation has been largely relying on market borrowings.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently said that the opposition-ruled states cannot blame the centre as even the arrears dating back decades were cleared during the last financial year, 2021-22.

"Putin is brutal," says Biden & floats 'War-Crimes' trial

New Delhi 

US President Joe Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin has been a "brutal" leader and could face a war crimes trial.

He also vowed that Washington would impose additional sanctions against Russia.

“He is a war criminal,” Biden said of Putin while speaking to reporters in Washington. “This guy is brutal, and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous, and everyone’s seen it," he stated.

The US President said - “We have to gather all the details”. 

Russia has denied the charges lobbed by Ukraine.

The Russian defence ministry said the images distributed by Ukraine were "another staged performance 

by the Kyiv regime", and Russia's chief investigator has ordered a probe on the basis that Ukraine 

had spread "deliberately false information" about Russian armed forces in Bucha.

Russia's defence ministry denied the Ukrainian allegations, saying footage and photographs showing 

dead bodies in Bucha were "yet another provocation" by the Vlodomyr Zelensky regime.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said, "Dead bodies lie on the streets. They (Russian army)

killed civilians while staying there and when they were leaving these villages and towns". 

He also called on G-7 nations to impose "devastating" new sanctions on Moscow and urged the 

International Criminal Court (ICC) to collect evidence of what he called Russian war crimes.

Ukraine has accused Russian forces of carrying out a massacre in the town of Bucha, where it 

said 300 residents were killed. 

The US and its European allies are preparing to deliver another slew of sanctions on Russia following 

mounting evidence of war crimes committed by its forces in Ukraine.

Germany too has said that the EU must discuss banning imports of Russian gas.

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