Skip to main content

Children of Cows

 

Source: unsplash.com

Prime Minister Modi declared the cow our mother last week while addressing a rally in Varanasi. I have my own mother and am certainly not interested in a surrogate especially at my age now. If some of my fellow citizens are in need of more mothers, who am I to object? My problem is not about having many mothers but about what Modi ji is doing for the cow’s children. Now that he is completing eight years in power, we need to assess his performance and see whether it is more mothers we need.

Let me tabulate a few indices to summarise Modi ji’s contribution to the nation in the last eight years as PM.

Index

Year & Rank

Year & Rank

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index

2014 - 27

2020 – 53

UNDP Human Development Index

2014 - 130

2020 – 131

IMD World Competitiveness Ranking

2013 - 40

2021 – 43

Freedom House’s Freedom in World Index

2014 - 77

2021 – 67

World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index

2014 - 66

2020 – 69

UN Sustainable Development Solutions World Happiness Report

2015 - 117

2021 – 139

Legatum Institute Prosperity Index

2015 - 99

2020 – 101

World Press Freedom Index

2014 - 140

2021 – 142

Georgetown Institute Women, Peace & Security Index

2017 - 131

2020 - 133

Fraser Institute Global Economic Freedom Index

2015 - 95

2020 – 105

Cato Human Freedom Index

2015 - 75

2020 – 111

World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Index

2014 - 114

2021 – 140

World Bank Women, Business and Law Index

2014 - 111

2021 – 123

World Index of Moral Freedom

2016 - 41

2020 – 70

International Intellectual Property Index

2014 - 25

2021 – 40

Global Innovation Index

2014 - 76

2020 – 48

World Economic Forum Global Economic Competitiveness

2017 - 40

2020 – 68

Internet Shutdown Tracker [shutdowns by govts]

2014 - 6

2020 – 109

WB International Logistics Performance Index

2014 - 54

2018 – 44

Numbeo Quality of Life Index

2014 - 48

2021 – 65

Fund for Peace Fragile States Index

2014 -81

2021 – 66

Global RTI Rating

2013 - 2

2021 – 6

Global Hunger Index

2014 - 55

2020 – 94

WB Doing Business Report

2014 - 142

2020 – 63

Knight Frank Global House Price Index

2015 - 17

2021 – 55

Quality of Nationality Index

2014 - 88

2018 – 95

WEF Human Capital Index

2013 - 78

2017 – 103

Bloomberg Healthiest Country Index

2015 - 103

2019 – 120

AT Kearney FDI Confidence Index

2014 - 7

2021 – no rank

Yale Environmental Performance Index

2014 - 155

2020 – 168

Germanwatch Global Climate Risk Index

2014 - 18

2021 – 7

Sustainable Development Index

2016 - 110

2021 - 120

Food Sustainability Index

2016 - 25

2018 – 33

Economics and Peace Positive Peace Index

2021 – Last out of 51 nations

Source: Aakar Patel, Price of the Modi Years

 

In every one of the above indices, India has slid down drastically during the Modi years. Some of the rankings are in ascending order and some in descending. So the numbers may confuse you a bit. But let me repeat: India came down invariably in every index.

Now tell me, is it more mothers or even fathers that we Indians need?

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 401: Cow is mother, sacred to us: PM Modi #CowMother

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Coming-of-Age Poems

Lubna Shibu Book Review Title: Into the Wandering Multiverse Author: Lubna Shibu Publisher: Book Leaf , 2024 Pages: 23 Poetry serves as a profound medium for self-reflection. It offers a canvas where emotions, thoughts, and experiences are distilled into words. Writing poetry is a dive into the depths of one’s consciousness, exploring facets of the poet’s identity and feelings that are often left unspoken. Poets are introverts by nature, I think. Poetry is their way of encountering other people. I was reading Lubna Shibu’s debut anthology of poems while I had a substitution period in a section of grade eleven today at school. One student asked me if she could have a look at the book as I was moving around ensuring discipline while the students were engaged in their regular academic tasks. I gave her the book telling her that the author was a former student in this very classroom just a few years back. I watched the student reading a few poems with some amusement. Then I ask...
8 comments
Read more

How to preach nonviolence

Like most government institutions in India, the Archaeological Survey of India [ASI] has also become a gigantic joke. The national surveyors of India’s famed antiquity go around finding all sorts of Hindu relics in Muslim mosques. Like a Shiv Ling [Lord Shiva’s penis] which may in reality be a rotting piece of a Mughal fountain. One of the recent discoveries of Modi’s national surveyors is that Sambhal in UP is the birthplace of Kalki, the tenth incarnation of God Vishnu. I haven’t understood yet whether Kalki was born in Sambhal at some time in India’s great antique history or Kalki is going to be born in Sambhal at some time in the imminent future. What I know is that Kalki is the final incarnation of Vishnu that is going to put an end to the present wicked Kali Yuga led by people like Modi Inc. Kalki will begin the next era, Satya Yuga, the Era of Truth. So he is yet to be born. But a year back, in Feb to be precise, Modi laid the foundation stone of a temple dedicated to Kalk...
12 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
15 comments
Read more

The Triumph of Godse

Book Discussion Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi in order to save Hindus from emasculation. Gandhi was making Hindu men effeminate, incapable of retaliation. Revenge and violence are required of brave men, according to Godse. Gandhi stripped the Hindu men of their bravery and transmuted them into “sheep and goats,” Godse wrote in an article titled ‘Non-resisting tendency accomplished easily by animals.’ Gandhi had to die in order to salvage the manliness of the Hindu men. This argument that formed the foundation of Godse’s self-defence after Gandhi’s assassination was later modified by Narendra Modi et al as: “ Hindu khatre mein hai ,” Hindus are in danger. So Godse has reincarnated now.   Godse’s hatred of non-Hindus has now become the driving force of Hindutva in India. It arose primarily because of the hurt that Godse’s love for his religious community was hurt. His Hindu sentiments were hurt, in other words. Gandhi, Godse, and the minority question is the theme of the...
5 comments
Read more