Latest news with #Ambedkar
The Hindu
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Every officer must understand Constitution in order to implement its objectives: Karnataka CM
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday emphasised that every officer must understand the Constitution, failing which it would be impossible to implement its objectives. Inaugurating a training programme for KAS taluk nodal officers at the Administrative Training Institute (ATI) here, he said that liberty, equality, and fraternity are the ideals of the Constitution. 'Even after 75 years of its implementation and 78 years since independence, its objectives remain unfulfilled. Equal opportunities are still a dream. Equality and fraternity have not been fully realised. We must ask ourselves why it is so and look for solutions,' he said. Recalling B.R. Ambedkar's historic speech on November 25, 1949, – the first day of the Constitution's adoption, he pointed out that Ambedkar had warned, 'We are entering a society with inequalities and contradictions. If we do not remove these inequalities, the oppressed people will destroy the edifice of democracy.' 'This is a warning for every officer. It is everyone's responsibility to protect democracy. Ambedkar cautioned what will happen if we fail in our responsiblity,' he noted. Mr. Siddaramaiah said the country has many castes and religions. 'Buddha, Basavanna, and Ambedkar — all worked for establishing a casteless society, yet caste has not disappeared. That is why Lohia said ours is a motionless society. Society becomes dynamic only when everyone achieves social and economic power.' The Chief Minister asked, 'There is a belief that KAS officers are intellectuals. But how many of you have critical thinking? How many of you have developed scientific temper? You need to introspect pragmatically.' 'Even educated people believe in fate and the theory of karma. Does God creates such inequalities?,' he questioned. He observed that unlike politicians who seek mandate every five years, officers do not face such a situation, and therefore they have a greater responsibility to implement people-centric programmes of the government. 'A society with greater purchasing power grows economically,' the Chief Minister opined, adding that the government's guarantee schemes have improved the financial strength and purchasing capacity of the people. 'Our society has many talented individuals who lack opportunities. When opportunities are provided to them, there is no scope for exploitation,' Mr. Siddaramaiah observed. He concluded his speech stating that inequality will persist as long as communal riots, fake news, caste oppression, and religious oppression continue. Minister in charge of Mysuru district H.C. Mahadevappa, Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh, in charge Secretary D. Ranadeep, president of KAS Officers' Association Shivaswamy, and others were present.
Time of India
3 days ago
- Health
- Time of India
Maharashtra health minister urges Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya to revise income eligibility limit for ESIS beneficiaries
Union Minister for Labour and Employment Dr Mansukh Mandaviya met Maharashtra Health Minister Prakash Ambedkar in New Delhi. The meeting was held to review the status of Employees' State Insurance Scheme (ESIS) hospitals in the state. During the meeting, Ambedkar requested the Union government to raise the income eligibility limit for ESIS beneficiaries from ₹21,000 to ₹30,000 per month, an HT report stated. 'This would allow more workers to access the scheme and help expand coverage across the state,' he said. Ambedkar also asked for additional financial support from the Centre to improve healthcare infrastructure and services for workers and their families. The review meeting covered operational challenges and pending construction works at ESIC hospitals in Andheri, Kolhapur, and Ulhasnagar. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Select a Course Category Healthcare others Product Management MBA Digital Marketing CXO Technology Management PGDM Artificial Intelligence Operations Management Others Project Management Finance Data Analytics MCA Data Science Public Policy Design Thinking Leadership Degree Cybersecurity healthcare Data Science Skills you'll gain: Financial Analysis in Healthcare Financial Management & Investing Strategic Management in Healthcare Process Design & Analysis Duration: 12 Weeks Indian School of Business Certificate Program in Healthcare Management Starts on Jun 13, 2024 Get Details Pending projects to be fast-tracked Dr Mandaviya assured that the incomplete works at these ESIC hospitals would be completed soon. He said the director-general of ESIC would be directed to prioritise and expedite these projects. He also informed that he would personally visit the ESIS hospital in Andheri with the state health minister. The Union Minister suggested a comprehensive review of all ESIC hospitals in Maharashtra. He added that the Centre was also considering upgrading the ESIC hospital in Nashik in light of the upcoming Kumbh Mela. 'This meeting will boost efforts to strengthen ESIC healthcare facilities across Maharashtra and will help ensure better medical services for insured workers,' said Ambedkar. Live Events Current status of ESIS in Maharashtra According to official data, Maharashtra currently has 15 ESIS hospitals, 134 service dispensaries, and 450 empanelled private hospitals. These facilities collectively serve about 4.87 million insured workers and their families—covering nearly two crore people under the scheme. The meeting was also attended by Health Secretary Virendra Singh, ESIS Commissioner Ramesh Chavan, and other senior government officials.
News18
4 days ago
- Politics
- News18
Time For India To Stop Wearing The ‘Secular' And ‘Socialist' Labels
Last Updated: One is a colonial, Western construct weaponised against India's civilisation; the other, an infatuation with Soviet Union and its oppressive communist economy, which finally failed The words of RSS sarkaryavah or general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale have often been the bellwether to profound and unexpected change. His statement against the decriminalisation of homosexuality under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, for instance, paved the way for the Indian Right bringing down its wall of resistance towards the reform. So, when 'Datta-ji" calls for a debate on the words 'secular" and 'socialist", which were inserted into the Preamble of the Constitution not by Parliament but through the backdoor during Emergency, his words carry both weight and edge. 'Later, these words were not removed. Should they remain or not, a debate must happen. These two words were not in Dr Ambedkar's Constitution. During the Emergency, the country had no functioning Parliament, no rights, no judiciary and yet these two words were added," Hosabale said. Has the Narendra Modi dispensation made up its mind to remove 'secular" and 'socialist" from India's Constitution? It seems so. Secularism was a European concept that evolved after a conflict between the Church and the King, he said. He argued Bharat is a dharma-centric nation, and therefore, 'secularism" was not part of the Constitution but added during the Emergency by 'one insecure prime minister". The founding parents of the Indian Constitution had extensively debated the subject before deciding not to include the two terms. On November 15, 1948, KT Shah proposed an amendment to the draft of the Indian Constitution to include 'Secular, Federal, Socialist Union of States". However, BR Ambedkar, the chairman of the Drafting Committee, junked the proposal. He said, 'What should be the policy of the state, how society should be organised in its social and economic side, are matters which must be decided by the people themselves according to time and circumstances." Ambedkar was staunchly against codifying an ideology like socialism in the Constitution and restricting future generations from choosing their own path. 'It cannot be laid down in the Constitution itself because that is destroying democracy altogether," he said. Ambedkar argued that the Constitution blueprint already had socialist principles laid down through the Directive Principles of State Policy. He pointed to Article 31 of the draft, which already prescribed a strong dose of socialism by preventing the concentration of wealth and providing equal pay for equal work. And both Jawaharlal Nehru and Ambedkar argued that the term 'secular" did not need to be explicitly mentioned in the Preamble. Ambedkar said the Constitution had already made it clear that India would not recognise any religion. Articles 16 and 19, for instance, prohibit discrimination against any person based on religion. Nehru said the notion of Western secularism did not fit Bharat's ideas of religious tolerance and respect for all cultures, ironically echoed by Ravi and the RSS-BJP ecosystem so many decades later. But Congress member of the Constituent Assembly Lokanath Misra was perhaps one of the most outspoken and unabashed voices against 'secularism". He called 'secular State" a 'slippery phrase, a device to bypass the ancient culture of the land". He argued that religion could not be divorced from life. 'If religion is beyond the ken of our State, let us clearly say so and delete all reference to rights relating to religion. If we find it necessary, let us be brave enough and say what it should be," he said. Here is a particularly impassioned—many may say politically incorrect—excerpt of his speech at the Constituent Assembly debates. 'We have no quarrel with Christ or Mohammad or what they saw and said. We have all respect for them. To my mind, Vedic culture excludes nothing. Every philosophy and culture has its place but now, the cry of religion is a dangerous cry. It denominates, it divides and encamps people in warring ways. In the present context what can this word 'propagation' in Article 19 mean? It can only mean paving the way for the complete annihilation of Hindu culture, the Hindu way of life and manners. Islam has declared its hostility to Hindu thought. Christianity has worked out the policy of peaceful penetration by the backdoor on the outskirts of our social life. This is because Hinduism did not accept barricades for its protection. Hinduism is just an integrated vision and a philosophy of life and cosmos, expressed in organised society to live that philosophy in peace and amity. But Hindu generosity has been misused and politics has overrun Hindu culture. Today religion in India serves no higher purpose than collecting ignorance, poverty and ambition under a banner that flies for fanaticism. The aim is political, for in the modern world all is power-politics and the inner man is lost in the dust. Let everybody live as he thinks best but let him not try to swell his number to demand the spoils of political warfare. Let us not raise the question of communal minorities anymore. It is a device to swallow the majority in the long run. This is intolerable and unjust." It is time for Bharat to do away with 'secular" and 'socialist" labels—one a colonial, Western construct weaponised against India's civilisation; the other, an infatuation with the rise of the Soviet Union and its oppressive communist economy, which ultimately failed. top videos View all The new India must carefully choose what it wears, what it wants to be. Abhijit Majumder is a senior journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views. First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
India Today
5 days ago
- Politics
- India Today
Socialist-secular debate: ‘Dattatreya Hosabale seeks regression, not reform'
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated July 14, 2025)On June 26, RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale said the quiet part out loud. He wanted a discussion on whether the words 'secular' and 'socialist' 'should remain' in the Constitution's Preamble. He said Ambedkar never used these words and argued that they were smuggled in during the Emergency. The 50th anniversary of the Emergency was seemingly a good occasion to discuss deleting them does not seek reform; what he wants is a regression. The Constitution is not an la carte menu. You cannot pick what you like and discard the rest. The Preamble reflects our national purpose. To alter its core is not debate. It is the 42nd Amendment added those words in 1976. But the idea behind them was always there. Secularism and Socialism flow through the Constitution like groundwater. You won't find secularism on every page. But dig, and it's there. Article 14 promises equality before law. Articles 15 and 16 prohibit discrimination. Article 25 guarantees freedom of religion. Articles 27 and 28 keep religion out of state institutions. Articles 29 and 30 protect cultural and educational rights of minorities. None of these need the word 'secular' to work. But the word ties them together conceptually. Secularism in India is not about hostility to religion. It means the state keeps an equal distance from all religions. It does not bow before temple, mosque or church. It protects belief. And the right not to believe. That's not alien. That's constitutional. Socialism, too, is not an alien transplant. It means social justice. It means the state must look after the weak. It means wealth cannot be the only source of power. Ambedkar didn't oppose the idea. He only warned against locking in an economic model. But the Directive Principles say enough: reduce inequality, ensure fair wages, protect the dignity of labour. These are socialist values, Indian in says the amendment came during dark times. True. But a bad moment doesn't make every act bad. Courts didn't strike down that part of the amendment. Even the Janata government, which reversed much of the Emergency's excesses, retained those words, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, as important ministers in that government, raised no objection to the continuation of those Supreme Court has settled this. In Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala (1973), secularism was enumerated among the Constitution's basic features. In S.R. Bommai vs Union of India (1994), the court said secularism is part of the Constitution's basic features. These are not footnotes. These are judgments of large constitution cannot amend the basic structure. You cannot touch the foundation without breaking the house. Parliament is powerful, but not absolute. Hosabale's demand is not about semantics. It is about reshaping the state. It is about shifting India from a secular republic to a majoritarian democracy. That's not just a constitutional problem. It's a national is not one colour, one language, one faith. It is a complex, layered society. Secularism is how we manage that diversity. Not by denial. But by respect and neutrality. You don't need the word 'secular' to act secular. But once you drop the word, you make space for its opposite. That is the risk. Words matter. That's why the RSS wants to drop them. To clear the path for something else. They want a Hindu Rashtra, not a secular republic. Let us not pretend otherwise. This is not about constitutional clarity. It's about political ambition. The Preamble is not a draft. It is a declaration. It says who we are. It says what we aspire to be. We may not always live up to it. But we do not give up on it or allow our national covenant to be rewritten by those who never believed in its words to begin with.—The author is a senior advocate at the Supreme CourtadvertisementSubscribe to India Today Magazine- EndsMust Watch
Time of India
6 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Saffron agenda won't work in TN: CM
Cuddalore: As long as dravidian, Marxist, Gandhian, and Ambedkar ideologies stay united in Tamil Nadu, no saffron agenda from Delhi will succeed in the state, said chief minister M K Stalin . Speaking after inaugurating the centenary auditorium with a life-size statue of the late social justice warrior L Ilayaperumal, at Lalpuram in Chidambaram, Cuddalore district, Stalin said that leaders of the dravidian, Marxist, Gandhian, and Ambedkarite movements were on the stage united. "This unity symbolises Tamil Nadu. VCK president Thol Thirumavalavan emphasized this, and I reaffirm it. When Tamil Nadu is united like this, no saffron agenda from Delhi will succeed here," he said. Listing out the steps taken by DMK over years for the welfare of scheduled caste and scheduled tribes by the late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi as well as by him, Stalin said, "In the history of Tamil Nadu, it is the dravidian model govt that implemented the highest number of welfare schemes for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities,'' he said. You Can Also Check: Chennai AQI | Weather in Chennai | Bank Holidays in Chennai | Public Holidays in Chennai Stalin said he would continue those efforts. "But are the steps taken so far enough? No. To build a society of self-respect, we must continue our long journey. We are doing that. That's why we've decided to remove the word 'colony' from govt documents," he said. "We've requested the Prime Minister that the disrespectful suffix 'in' used to denote official names of SC/ST communities be changed to the respectful 'ir' suffix. We've renamed school and college hostels to 'social justice hostels', removing caste identifiers," Stalin said. Stalin said that everything will not change overnight. "The journey toward social liberation is long, and it takes time. But change will come. And I will bring that change," he said. Later in the day, a govt statement said that Stalin has announced multiple projects for Cuddalore based on requests from the public during his visit including creation of Srimushnam taluk.
