DailyOh! Modi warns against andolanjeevis, to Maharashtra to probe ‘pressure’ on celebrities

After days of protests in India over farm laws and some people abroad questioning why no one was talking about the protests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi replied to the motion of thanks on the President’s address in Rajya Sabha today. For those looking for replies to protesters, their supporters, farmers union leaders, opposition leaders and all other ‘ers’, Modi’s speech served well. While giving the customary reply to the customary motion of thanks, Modi said that people say India is the world’s largest democracy, but India must say with pride that it isn’t just the largest democracy, but the cradle of democracy.

Some may ask why should India take pride in being the largest at all? Well, because the larger it gets the more difficult it becomes to hold and we aren’t talking about your weekend peg because the weekend is behind you and the week has just begun. Having told people what they should take pride this week and beyond, Modi told opposition leaders he will take the blame but by supporting the farm laws they can take the credit for taking the country ahead. “Modi hai mauka lejiye,” said who else but Modi.

But Modi denied any more mauka to those who, according to Modi, see all protests as an opportunity. He said you will find one set (the same set) of people joining every protest no matter the cause. Maybe such people are pro protests, anti whatever. But the PM thinks we should watch out for them. Just so that you know what you are watching out for he coined a word andolanjeevi.

Andolanjeevi, the Word Of The Day, finds its inspiration in the word buddhijeevi, which is said to be the Hindi word for intellectual, but is slightly different. You see not all words in one language find an exact equivalent in another language because you may translate a word from one language to the other but languages  per se are not the translation of each other. They evolve independently of each other unlike andolanjeevis who are dependent on someone's andolan to evolve. Intellectual means someone who has the ability to think logically. But buddhijeevi is someone who can earn a living by doing jobs that require the use of brain like writers and professors. You can say all jobs require the use of brain because brain fail would leave us incapable of doing any job. But you get what we mean by buddhijeevi. On similar lines, Modi feels, andolanjeevi is someone who makes a living by participating in andolans and since it is not their andolan but someone else’s andolan they choose to join to earn their living from, Modi calls them parjeevi andolanjeevi – parasitic andolanjeevi. Modi’s speech has a task for you – identify the andolanjeevi and beware of them.

Modi also has reiterated, “MSP tha, MSP hai, MSP rahega.” Any resemblance to Sunny Deol’s ‘Hindustan zindabad, zindabad hai, zindabad rahega’ roar is just resemblance.

From inside Parliament, let’s move outside Parliament and from today let’s go back to yesterday. Yesterday, you know a natural disaster struck Chamoli district in Uttarakhand in the wake of which 19 people died and over 150 have gone missing. Some said it was a glacial lake burst and some said it was an avalanche. What will matter is what the experts finally say when they have examined what happened. A team of scientists today reached the disaster-hit region to examine it all. But when the tragedy struck yesterday everyone reminisced about the tragedy that struck eight years back in June 2013. The Uttarakhand floods that left over 6,000 people dead in its wake, with many presumed dead because the bodies could never be found.

It all started with heavy rains that started around June 13, 2013, and turned disastrous when a lake burst on June 16. If you want to know how the entire tragedy unfolded, you can watch Himalayan Tsunami, a Discovery documentary. But if you want to know what saved the Kedarnath temple in the floods that spared nothing on its way, read on.

It’s difficult to put a date to when Kedarnath temple was built because there are many legends attached to it. But geologists say that the temple was buried under snow around 1300-1900 AD, a period known as the Little Ice Age. Little Ice Age apparently could do no harm to the huge temple because it is made of stones and boulders cut into shape. In 2013, a huge boulder, not cut into shape, saved Kedarnath temple. The boulder wasn’t always present there. It tumbled down with the mudslide and landslide through June 16. When the flood of water and slush came in the next wave, this huge boulder, which was right behind the temple, divided the water and slush into two directions saving the temple. So, had the boulder not come along with the slush, the temple may have taken a massive hit and that which did not happen could have happened. Why mull over that which did not happen? So that it doesn’t happen again.

Environmentalists say people are harming the ecological balance of Uttarakhand by reaching the region in large numbers and prompting hoteliers to build hotels -flouting norms - to accommodate these large numbers. How do you cap the number of people who can reach Uttarakhand and how do you ensure hoteliers don’t flout norms? The good news is that you don’t have to do either. The better news is that you can ask the government to take urgent steps to do something about it even as you plan a hurried trip to Uttarakhand, or Himachal Pradesh, or Kashmir simply because you can.

While you may want the government to act on the environmental challenge facing the Himalayan region, Mia Khalifa wants Priyanka Chopra to speak on the farmers’ issue. It took Twitter tutorials to remind Mia that Priyanka has already spoken about it. Mamma Mia! Why do your research when you can have Twitter do it for you.

Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh would do his own research on whether there was any pressure on Indian celebrities to tweet against tweets from foreign celebrities in a 'my celebrity support' versus 'your celebrity support' contest. The winner of the contest will get support as an award, which will be contested by the losers of the contest, who too will declare victory in the contest. National Congress Party Deshmukh, however, decided to do the research after requests from Congress leaders. Congress leaders are worried if celebrities buckled under BJP pressure. Is there a punishment for buckling under pressure? Unlikely. But there could be a punishment for pressuring someone. Also, there could be punishment for cheating. Anil Deshmukh wants to know how the tweets of Akshay Kumar and Saina Nehwal are the same. But how can cheating be punishable if there was no exam and people were not asked not to cheat?

Maybe there is punishment for cheating even when there is no exam and hence no need to cheat. Needless cheating.

Do the needful and the needless that attracts no punishment - if time permits.

We have run out of time for today so we will see you again tomorrow.

Stay safe.

Now get the all-new DailyOh in your mailbox. Click here to subscribe. 

Also read: Stepping Beyond Khaki, a tale of policing