News Analysis India

Tag: Taranjit Singh Sandhu

  • Lok Sabha Polls: In 8th Candidate List, BJP Bets On Turncoats In Odisha, Punjab; Fields Ex-Ambassador From Amritsar |

    The Bharatiya Janata Party has so far announced the names of 118 candidates for the Lok Sabha Elections 2024. The party released its eighth list of 11 candidates yesterday which had names of several turncoats and even a surprising name of a foreign ambassador. The list had names from three states – Punjab, Odisha and West Bengal. The list puts BJP way ahead of the Congress as the grand old party is yet to announce names on the majority of seats. The Congress has so far released names of 218 candidates. 

    BJP’s Odisha List

    The BJP nominated Bhartruhari Mahtab from the Cuttack Lok Sabha seat. A sitting MP from the seat on the BJD ticket, Mahtab recently joined the BJP. Mahtab, a six-time MP, had on March 22 resigned from the BJD. Other names in the list include Rabindra Narayan Behera, a former director of the National Informatics Centre, from Jajpur and Sukanta Kumar Panigrahi from Kandhamal. The BJP had earlier announced candidates for 18 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha.

    BJP’s Punjab List

    The saffron party surprised everyone by fielding former Indian ambassador to the United States Taranjit Singh Sandhu from the Amritsar seat in Punjab. Hans Raj Hans, who lost their party ticket from North West Delhi, has now been fielded from the Amritsar seat. Former AAP MP Sushil Kumar Rinku, who recently joined the BJP, got a ticket from the Jalandhar seat while former Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu got a ticket from Ludhiana. Dinesh Singh Babbu has replaced star Sunny Deol from the Gurdaspur seat. The party also fielded Preneet Kaur, wife of Capain Amarinder Singh, from Patiala.

    Why Sandhu From Amritsar?

    The BJP has been actively working to expand its support base among Sikhs, who constitute a majority in Punjab, with hopes of making significant gains in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The party is particularly focused on reclaiming the Amritsar seat, which it hasn’t held since Navjot Singh Sidhu’s victory in 2009. However, Sidhu, now with the Congress party, currently holds the seat, represented by Gurjeet Singh Aujla. Both Arun Jaitley and Hardeep Singh Puri, BJP candidates and current Union ministers, faced defeat in the 2014 and 2019 elections respectively.

    BJP, Congress Candidate List So Far

    On March 2, released a list of 195 candidates. On March 13, it announced the names of 72 candidates. On March 21, the BJP released a list of 9 candidates for Tamil Nadu. On March 22, the party released another name of 15 candidates. On March 24, the party announced the names of 111 candidates and on March 26, the party announced three more candidates – two from Rajasthan and one from Manipur. The party released its seventh list on March 27 which had two names. On March 30, the party released the eighth list of 11 candidates. With this, the party has so far announced the names of 118 candidates. 

    Congress released its first list of 39 candidates on March 8. This was followed by 43 candidates in the second list on March 12, 57 candidates on March 21, 3 candidates on March 24, 46 candidates on March 46, 5 candidates on March 25, 5 candidates on March 26, 14 candidates on March 27 and 5 candidates on March 29. The party additionally announced the name of KV Gowtham from Karnataka’s Kolar on March 30. With this, the party has announced names of a total of  218 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls.

  • India’s digital ecosystem is undergoing a historic evolution: Taranjit Singh Sandhu

    By PTI
    WASHINGTON: India’s digital ecosystem, backed by a thriving startup culture, is undergoing a historic evolution and American companies should act quickly to benefit from this new-found opportunity, New Delhi’s top diplomat in the US has told a powerful Silicon Valley body.

    Under the Prime Minister’s (Narendra Modi) Digital India initiative, India’s digital space is witnessing rapid transformation, India’s Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu said on Tuesday in his address to the annual Washington DC trip of the powerful Bay Area Council.

    The whole B2B (business-to-business), B2C (business-to-consumer) ecosystem, is undergoing a historic evolution, backed by a thriving startup culture.

    It is estimated that by 2023, India will have a connected market, of up to 700 million smartphones, and about 800 million internet users, he said.

    Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the annual Washington DC visit of the Bay Area Council is being held virtually.

    Prominent speakers to the annual event include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, other several powerful lawmakers including Senator Dianne Feinstein and Kelly Speakes-Backman, Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

    During their interaction with Sandhu, the only ambassador to address the annual event of the Bay Area Council, technology and innovation partnership emerged as a key area of cooperation between two sides and there were lots of interest on both sides to enhance engagement on the issue.

    In his remarks, Sandhu told members of the Bay Area Council that India also has a large untapped market for financial services.

    India sees mobile technology, fintech and a cashless society as key to financial empowerment, and inclusion.

    Certain estimates project that the fintech market, in India, that includes regular retail banking, to e-commerce, may become a trillion dollar market, by 2023, he said.

    US companies, he noted, have already taken a keen interest in the Indian tech space.

    Several companies, especially from the Bay Area, have acted quickly to benefit from this new-found opportunity.

    In the last few months, notwithstanding COVID-19 pandemic, US West Coast has committed more than USD 18 billion in investment, in Indian digital markets.

    This includes Facebook’s USD 5.7 billion, Google’s USD10 billion in addition to investments, by QUALCOMM, Silver Lake and Sequoia Capital, he said.

    Observing that cyber security issues that confront India and the US today, include national security concerns, Sandhu said they collectively need to fight this common challenge, and continue to promote the Internet, as an engine for innovation, economic growth, and trade and commerce.

    Referring to the recently held Quad summit, he said one of the quad joint working groups is on critical technology.

    This is an acknowledgement of the fact that Quad nations need to work together to ensure technological edge.

    “Just two weeks ago, the leaders of India, US, Australia and Japan met for the first time, as part of the Quad framework.

    In the context of the pandemic, our four countries are coordinating, on a unique vaccine initiative, – India would ramp up production of vaccines, and in partnership with other countries, would ensure its distribution, in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.

    Sandhu said that in the new post COVID-19 world order, India and the Bay Area, will have a critical role to play.

    Opportunities for India-US collaboration, especially for Bay Area companies, are boundless.

    “There is a great scope for cross-national collaboration, in the tech-space, that’s witnessing growing integration, across various sectors.

    The growing advance of AI, in all walks of our lives, aided by 5G, IOT, big-data analytics, blockchain technology etc.

    will bring about a radical transformation, in our social and economic interactions,” he said.