It is unfortunate that 11 family members of six policemen working with the Jammu and Kashmir police have been kidnapped by the terrorists on Thursday after they raided the homes of several police officers across four districts — Shopian, Kulgam, Anantnag, and Awantipora in south Kashmir. The kidnapping comes days after security forces conducted multiple raids and arrested relatives of some terrorists in the area; the NIA even arrested the second son of globally wanted terrorist Syed Salahuddin. Following that, a statement supposedly by Hizbul operational commander Riyaz Naikoo started floating on the social media stating, “Police has compelled us to follow the course of an eye for an eye and an ear for an ear.”

Sunil Kumar, an avid reader of Afternoon Voice asserted, “This has been the pattern in J&K if we track down the records of the last few months. Locals working in the police department and the Army are being targeted. The local support is very important for the Army and the Police and terrorists are targeting them to isolate the Army and Police. It seems that the authorities have failed to curb violence and its consequences will be disastrous.”

The conflict-torn Valley has seen sharp bursts of civil unrest and terror attacks, the security situation is deteriorating in the state with time, and the last few years have made the situation worst. The number of policemen who have been killed by the militants across the state so far this year has reached 33. However, the families of policemen have been targeted like this has happened in the valley for the first time in the last 28 years of militancy.

Stating growing terror activities and radicalisation in the valley, the BJP in June pulled out its support from the PDP-led Jammu and Kashmir government. The uneasy coalition ended, the state came under the Central government’s control, and BJP replaced previous Governor NN Vohra with incumbent Satya Pal Malik. The terrorists are creating fear amongst the people against the system and the time has come when the Protectors (JK Police) of our country needs protection — the entire nation wants to know whether the central government is sleeping on such life-and-death situation as all its empty promises to bring peace in the valley has crashed on the ground.

The four long years have passed since Bharatiya Janata Party led by Narendra Modi has enthroned at the Centre and the next general election is just a year away. After promising the countrymen to wipe their tears, BJP’s then PM candidate Modi asked, “You gave Congress 60 years, give BJP just 60 months. We will change India’s future and bring development.” Citizens trusted and voted them to power. But what’s next? The country has seen major flops in the past 51 months. Starting from law and order deterioration in J&K to Demonetisation, Goods and Services Tax, Rupee hitting all-time low, fuel price hike, Rafale deal, farmers’ suicide, rising cases of mob lynchings, the list goes on.

Senior AAP leader Ravi Srivastava exclaimed, “There has been a series of lapses on the part of the government in the last four years — huge unemployment, failed demonetisation that took many lives, crashed GDP, businesses affected after GST’s faulty implementation. The Modi government promised to stop Maoist insurgency and terrorism in Kashmir, but everything is increasing day by day. Five activists were arrested without any credible evidence against them after one year of investigation. It seems like an undeclared emergency is prevailing in the country and that’s unfortunate.”

Let’s talk about few such major flops By Prime Minister Narendra Modi:

#Demonetisationthebiggestscam

On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the demonetisation of high-value currency notes (Rs 500 and Rs 1000) to wipe out black money and end corruption. The common man had to bear the brunt of this sudden decision as the RBI was not prepared at all to manage the cash vacuum.

While the submission of the old notes in the given timeframe created major chaos with long queues and very less banking staff in the banks, the newly issued denomination gave taxpayers’ more pain as the existing ATMs were not configured as the new currency requirements. As a result, ATMs went dry, senior citizens faced the worst days standing in long queues to exchange their notes, many small traders shut their shops, unemployment took a new aggressive turn, and the ugly days of demonetisation took away more than 100 lives.

The government urged people to suffer ‘now’ for a ‘corruption-free cashless nation tomorrow’. People believed but almost two years after November 2016, economists are calling the note ban ‘a policy that fails on every possible yardstick’ that has spurred gold smuggling as an easy way to transform the black money to white. Black money is still on the run, abolition of corruption is far away to be achieved, and curbing terrorism has remained a dream — the currency in circulation has nearly returned to pre-demonetisation levels as the RBI says, 99 per cent of the demonetized currency is back into the system. So what’s the point? Rather, we have spent Rs 21,000 crore just on printing new notes and a big chuck on reconfiguring the ATMs!

#Rupeehitsalltimelow

The past few weeks have not been quite comforting for the Indian currency and the Rupee has touched its all-time low of 71 against US Dollar. The government is on a celebrating mood after India became the sixth largest economy but the Rupee depreciation gives a hollow picture of the Indian economy. It was our incumbent Prime Minister who slammed the previous UPA regime for its inability to arrest the Rupee value decline when in 2013 Rupee breached the 64-mark against USD. He said that weak Rupee will help other countries to take advantage of our country. The table has turned now! The country is looking up to his inability in making Rupee stronger.

#Rafaledeal

The Modi government came into power in 2014 with a mantra of a corruption-free nation and clean governance. However, the blame game over Rafale aircrafts deal is getting bigger every day; but in between all, we the taxpayers are waiting to witness another big scam, i.e. waste of our money. Congress blamed the Modi government for causing “challenging loss” of taxpayers’ money by signing the Rafale deal worth Rs 58,000 crores. It also claimed that the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence Limited had been unfairly picked to be the French firm’s Indian partner sidelining HAL. The party has also claimed that the cost of each aircraft is three times more than what the previous UPA had negotiated with France in 2012.

High on promises but low on delivery

Big-ticket plans like Make-in-India, Digital India, and Smart Cities do nowhere exist as they need policy support, which is missing. The PM promised 20 million jobs a year, but instead more than 7.2 million jobs were lost over the last four years and reports say that job creation in India is at an eight-year low. Meanwhile, billionaires like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and more managed to rob public money and flee to the UK. The government acted as a mere spectator and in October 2017, total bad loans, including non-performing assets (NPAs), stood at $145.6 billion in the nationalised banks.

Over the last four years, India’s agricultural growth has been at its lowest since economic reforms began and the promise of doubling farmers’ incomes is left more like ‘an insensitive taunt’. The growth has come down to 1.9 per cent from 4.2 per cent in the previous government rule. Moreover, as per the Crime Records Bureau, the farmer suicides have increased by 41.7 per cent after the Modi government came to power in 2014.

Shiv Sena spokesperson Manisha Kayande said, “The RBI report makes it crystal clear that the demonetisation was a big blunder but the BJP leaders and the PM himself will never accept it. They joined hands in Kashmir with PDP instead of being in the Opposition and formed the government but now when the situation went out of the control, they escaped. The Governor of J&K must declare an election as the state needs a stable government.”

“The list of BJP’s failures have piled up now with the recent Rafale scam. If the Modi government fails to fulfill their promises until 2019, people will go for an alternative this time!” she added.

While the list is too far to meet its end, the government has managed to gather a group of ignorant attackers who are so fond of the incumbent government that they don’t hesitate to mislead the common man with wrong facts supporting the success of Narendra Modi. The group has all its participants from the upper creamy crust of the society. While intellectuals are being killed and activists are being arrested being named as Urban Naxals, the rising trend of #SaffronNaxals is way more threatening for our democracy.