350-cr Shivaji statue: Where's the austerity?

NSG_Blackcats

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Sonia Gandhi's flying economy now. So are her ministers, including seniors like Pranab Mukherjie. Austerity is the buzzword in the Congress for now. But here's where the Congress draws the line. A Rs 350-crore statue of Shivaji off Marine Drive in Mumbai is not going to be scrapped. Not at a time when Maharashtra's getting ready to vote for its next government. Current Chief Minister Ashok Chavan says: "Let me make it very clear, austerity has nothing to do with government's policy and programs. It is expenditure by public representatives." But there's opposition on the internet, and on Mumbai's streets. "Instead of building something new why not restore the structures built in Shivaji's lifetime which are in such a mess?" counters activist Nayana Kathpalia.

The austerity drive began after media reports that two Union ministers, S M Krishna and Shashi Tharoor, were staying in five-star hotels because their government accommodation was not ready. Both ministers were footing their own bills, but Sonia Gandhi reportedly expressed her displeasure about this sending out the wrong message at a time when price rise and drought are serious worries for her government. Since then, ministers have been asked to fly economy class and cut down on their official expenditure.

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NSG_Blackcats

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This so called austerity by UPA govt is just tokenism. When India has a huge unplanned expenditure this tokenism is not going to help. I do not know when our politician will stop using public money for statue building.
 

EnlightenedMonk

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So, why link the two ??? This proposal has been under consideration for ages and finally it has got the nod...
 

NSG_Blackcats

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^^ It is not about linking the two. If the UPA govt at center is concerned about non-planned expenditure; it could have asked the state govt of Maharashtra to scrap the project. All the party were crying when Mayawati is building statue in UP, but when they do the same thing it is fine.
 

EnlightenedMonk

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Mayawati building statues of herself <> Us building statue of Shivaji

Because

Mayawati <> Shivaji
 

NSG_Blackcats

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^^Mayawati is also building statue of Ambedkar. It is not about building statues or who builds statues of whom. When thousands of farmers are dying in Maharashtra the Govt is spending 350cr on building statue and people are happy to support this.
 

EnlightenedMonk

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There are other ways to penny-pinch and false economies... this is something that will rival the Statue of Liberty in size and attractiveness... and what's more ??? It's a quintessential Indian hero....
 

NSG_Blackcats

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^^Rival the statue of liberty!! The govt must first try to improve the road conditions in Mumbai. After doing that they can think of rivaling statue of liberty.
 

shravan

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I do not know when our politician will stop using public money for statue building.
Most of the people from Maharashtra want to see a Shivaji Maharaj Statue so whats wrong with it ?

All the party were crying when Mayawati is building statue in UP, but when they do the same thing it is fine.
Don't you see any difference between Mayawati & Shivaji Maharaj ?


It is not about building statues or who builds statues of whom. When thousands of farmers are dying in Maharashtra the Govt is spending 350cr on building statue and people are happy to support this.
That's True. The project should be postponed.

Rival the statue of liberty!! The govt must first try to improve the road conditions in Mumbai. After doing that they can think of rivaling statue of liberty.
i thought farmers lives are more important.

EnlightenedMonk
It's a quintessential Indian hero
There are people who think Shivaji Maharaj a Indian (Marathi) hero. Any problems, Sir ?
 

NSG_Blackcats

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Most of the people from Maharashtra want to see a Shivaji Maharaj Statue so whats wrong with it ?
There is nothing wrong in building statue of Shivaji Maharaja. If I am not wrong there are enough statues of Shivaji Maharaj in Maharashtra. Mumbai Airport is named after him and a lot of other thing in respect of the great Maratha warrior. So what is the need of creating another one?


Don't you see any difference between Mayawati & Shivaji Maharaj ?
It is not about Mayawati or Shivaji Maharaj. It is about wastage of public money.
 

Rage

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Gentlemen,

Before you proceed with this discussion, please note:

Mayawati can no longer build statues of herself, by mandate of the Supreme Court.


---

Indian icon Mayawati halts statue-building spree

Monday, 14 Sep, 2009 | 10:29 AM PST |


Mayawati, chief of the caste-based Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and a prime
ministerial aspirant, waves to her supporters during an election campaign
rally in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, April 21, 2009. — Reuters



NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court has forced low-caste political icon Mayawati to halt her statue-construction spree aimed at celebrating the heroes on the lowest rung of the country's social ladder.

Mayawati, who leads the poverty-ridden northern state of Uttar Pradesh, has stirred huge controversy by spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build ‘statue parks’ she says will boost the status of India's lowest castes.

The pugnacious politician initially defied the court's order last month to stop construction of Greek Parthenon-style memorials to political icons of the Dalits — those at the bottom of the ancient Hindu caste hierarchy.

But after the court warned that the state government was ‘playing with fire’ the 53-year-old, known as the ‘Dalit Queen’, ordered a halt last Friday to building and the construction sites fell silent at the weekend.

The court order covers half a dozen sites being developed into memorials to leaders of the long-oppressed Dalits — the 160 million Indians who still face widespread oppression despite legislation outlawing discrimination.

Many of the monuments are to Kanshi Ram, founder of Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), B.R. Ambedkar who framed the Indian constitution and also of Mayawati — whose statues show her carrying her trademark handbag.

The court censured Mayawati for spending an estimated 26 billion rupees (537 million dollars) on what critics have dubbed her ‘obsession’ with building statues.
Uttar Pradesh is India's most populous state where funds are badly needed for hospitals, schools and other public services.

Mayawati, who has used her caste to mobilise voter support and become India's most important Dalit politician, has stirred opposition by changing land use rules, pouring concrete over green space and demolishing public buildings to create the memorials.

‘Lifeless and insipid, they fail to move the spectator because they speak of nothing but their creator's lust for grandeur,’ wrote columnist Amrit Dhillon in the Times of India.

The top court said the state government could not ‘fritter away’ public money on such memorials and promised to examine the ‘constitutional validity’ of such memorials for political leaders using taxpayers' money.

But the former school teacher, who has proclaimed her desire to be India's first Dalit prime minister, has denied accusations that she is squandering public money.

She insists that the statues are meant to celebrate the contribution to India's history of the Dalits.

‘We may look at them in terms of aesthetics and cost’ but for many Dalits the statues are ‘symbols of empowerment’, author Ajoy Bose, who wrote a biography of Mayawati, told AFP.

‘They are a pilgrimage site for many Dalits,’ he says, but adds that if the Dalits believe Mayawati is not doing anything else for them ‘she will be in a lot of trouble’.

Mayawati says nobody has criticised the ruling Congress party, led by Sonia Gandhi, for spending vast sums on monuments to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which has governed India for most of the period since independence in 1947.

Had the Congress party spent money on ‘memorials for eminent persons belonging to the Dalit community, the BSP government would not have felt the need for the task’, she said recently.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh opposition chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, ousted by Mayawati in 2007, has vowed to bulldoze the statues and memorials if he returns to power.

‘If the Samajwadi Party is voted to power in the future, all statues and other constructions will be razed to ground,’ Yadav said last week.

‘The SP will bring in laws whereby no government will be able to misuse funds for memorials and statues by obtaining the approval of the cabinet and the state legislature,’ he said.


DAWN.COM | World | Indian icon Mayawati halts statue-building spree
 

NSG_Blackcats

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^^Supreme Court had not said that Mayawati cannot build statues. The apex court asked the UP govt to halt all construction activities of statues till its next order. There is a case in the apex court on misutilisation of public money in UP. The next hearing of this case is on 23rd September (please correct me If I am wrong).
 

Rage

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^^Supreme Court had not said that Mayawati cannot build statues. The apex court asked the UP govt to halt all construction activities of statues till its next order. There is a case in the apex court on misutilisation of public money in UP. The next hearing of this case is on 23rd September (please correct me If I am wrong).
You're a tad outta-date brotherman :

Mayawati finally relents after Supreme Court rap (To go with ‘Apex court enraged over continued memorial construction’)


Further confirmation of the same:

Court halts Mayawati statue spree - Worldnews.com

Maya rushes to mollify SC- Hindustan Times


Apparently the BJP and the Congress asked her to cease-and-desist as well:

BJP, Congress ask Mayawati to stop statue spree
 

NSG_Blackcats

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I am afraid you are wrong. The apex court has asked the state govt of UP to stop all construction work till the court gives its verdict on the PIL filed by advocate Ravi Kant and Sukumar.

ADVOCATE SUKUMAR (SUPREME COURT OF INDIA)

YouTube - SC crackdown on Maya's statues

Check this

Fixing September 18 for the next date of hearing, the court directed the Times of India, The Hindu and the NDTV to submit the documents and video clippings of the reports published and shown to viewers by September 17. The media reports said work on the Rs 2,600-crore memorial for Kanshi Ram, B R Ambedkar and others in Lucknow was continuing despite the undertaking given on September 8 that construction would be stopped.

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Rage

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NSG_Blackcats,


I am afraid I am not.

I trust you know that the Apex Court of India IS the Supreme Court. The term is mostly found in texts originated in India, where the Apex Court stands for the Indian Supreme Court.

Most other countries use the term "Supreme Court," although there may be variations in some places. In the United States, the high court is called the Supreme Court of the United States, but is more commonly referred to as the US Supreme Court.

Both Apex and Supreme typically refer to a government body's highest court of appeals.


As to your sources, for the purposes of academia, your first source is from August the 22nd 2009. It is nearly a month obsolete- not exactly current. All of my sources are either from September the 11th 2009 or thereafter.

Reread the sources aforthwith. There is no discrepancy in the matter.


Your youtube video was uploaded on June 29th 2009. Ergo, more than "a tad outta-date".


From your final source, which is the only one that is contemporaneous- on the very first line:

Warning the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh that 'you are trying to play with fire,' the Supreme Court on Friday ordered stoppage of all construction at the Kanshi Ram Memorial Sthal in Lucknow by Friday evening.

A bench comprising Justices B N Agarwal and Aftab Alam said: ”Construction, repair and maintenance will stop at all construction sites. All work force, except the watch and ward staff, shall vacate by 7 pm.



Stop work at Kanshi memorial: SC to Maya
 

NSG_Blackcats

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^^ If you don't agree that in the judgment on 11th Sept the Supreme Court of India asked the Govt of UP to stop all construction work immediately and fixed 17th Sept for the next hearing than just wait 2 more days you will get your answer.
 

Rage

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^^ If you don't agree that in the judgment on 11th Sept the Supreme Court of India asked the Govt of UP to stop all construction work immediately and fixed 17th Sept for the next hearing than just wait 2 more days you will get your answer.

The final Supreme Court verdict is pending as of its previous directive (in June) and subsequent show-cause notice and suo-motu action on September the 11th. However, there is no indication that the final judgement will differ from the present directive- are you suggesting otherwise? In the words of judges of the bench, Justice B N Agarwal and Justice Aftab Alam to Mayawati, "you are playing with fire...."

Furthermore, with both major political parties backing the Apex Court's decision, it is extremely unlikely that it will go her way, particularly in light of the Supreme Court's suo-motu cognizance.

I was not suggesting the Supreme Court's directive to be its final judgement (although there is no indication that it will be otherwise). My use of the terms 'stop' and 'halt' were purely interchangeable.

Perhaps I was a bit too premature in saying: "Mayawati can no longer build statues". My intention was not to communicate that in legal parlance, only to say that as of the present, she no longer can.
 

Rage

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^^ I hope you do remember initially the Supreme Court had refused to intervene. So lets wait for the final verdict.
Yes it did refuse. But that was in early June 2009, more than three months ago. You will understand that an autonomous suo-motu cognizance by an Apex body is usually sign of the nature of the verdict.

And this time there is no political opposition to scupper that proclivity.


We are going out of topic. So back to topic.
Back to it then.


Been there done that :) You might be better off uploading the video from youtube via istream if you can.
 

Sridhar

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Austerity slips on Italian marble & Spanish tiles

While Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi’s tryst with austerity included an economy class flight to Mumbai and Bangalore and an Iftar-less Ramzan, her son and party general secretary Rahul Gandhi took a rail ride to Ludhiana and back. But look at what UPA minsters are up to in Delhi. Many Cabinet ministers have ordered expensive fittings to renovate their offices.
While some wanted Spanish wall tiles and Italian porcelain in toilets, one minister wanted a new toilet right behind her chair as per the advice of her vaastu expert!
All these have cost the public exchequer a few crores. Call this austerity!

Ministers who are exceptions: Defence Minister A K Antony and Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee. Both the ministers have not put up any big wish list. While Antony is continuing in his earlier chambers, Mamta is more comfortable operating out of Kolkatta, not Delhi. Hence her chamber in Rail Bhavan is empty most days.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home Minister P Chidambaram too have set an example not asking for changes. It is the new ministers and a few ministers of state who have thrown the austerity book out of the window.
According to The Indian Express, some requests from Ministers flooding the Director General of Works (DGW) of the Central Public Works Department are strange. One Minister wanted a private architect being kept "in the loop" for finalising his new office design, a Minister of State has demanded a new toilet "on the back side of her seat" in keeping with Vaastu.
While many ministers are keen on having plush toilets with the latest bathroom fittings, some have fallen for new wooden flooring and tiles.

Most favoured companies? From Italy and Spain!
Even the young Jitin Prasada, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, has slipped in a wish list having toilet fittings from Kohler, Italian marble and wall and floor tiles of EP02 NATSQ make.
Prasada was quoted in IE as saying: "I got everything done from the CPWD, within the permissible rules and not from outside or from a PSU or anything like that. As far as specifics of the kind of fittings etc that were asked for, I really don't know the details."


Austerity slips on Italian marble & Spanish tiles -  National News ? News ? MSN India
 

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