Legions of devotees. Why should he care?

Punjab farmers, protesting against new farm laws at the borders of Delhi, have sent legal notices to 2 union ministers Giriraj Singh and Nitin Patel as well as to BJP leader Ram Madhav "seeking unconditional apology and unambiguous withdrawal of the alleged defamatory and derogatory statements made by the three leaders". Earlier, BJP leaders alleged that farmers are linked to Sikh separatist movement of Khalistan. To counter false propaganda from the government an alliance of farmers' groups called Kisan Ekta Morcha has launched a Facebook page, which has 312,000 followers, and its channel on YouTube has 1.22 million subscribers. Data released by the fifth National Family Health Survey (NHFS5) shows an increase in child malnutrition in some states between 2014 and 2019. In NHFS4 survey in 2015-16, 36% of children in India were underweight, more than Bangladesh at 22% and Nepal at 27%, wrote Prof Jean Dreze. The present survey shows that "Child nutrition indicators have not improved between 2015-16 and 2019-20." Economist Surjit S Bhalla, an ardent supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, took exception to Dreze's analysis. Actually, "The data show that there has been considerable improvement in many of these 131 indicators of social welfare" and the article by Dreze is full of "typos, falsehoods, misinterpretation of the data". He is disgusted that "Not one of the authors looked at the data on wasting (weight for height)." In his rejoinder Dreze notes that "this is not Bhalla's first self-goal". He dismantles Bhalla's arguments and writes, "I ignored wasting because it is a tricky indicator of child nutrition: It has the odd effect of classifying stunted children as well-nourished if they have adequate weight for their height." Former Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) Partho Dasgupta was arrested on 24 December for taking hundreds of thousands of rupees from editor-in-chief of Republic TV Arnab Goswami to alter its viewership ratings. In November, Arnab Goswami, another ardent supporter of Modi, was released on bail by the Supreme Court after being arrested for abetting suicide of Anvay Naik and his mother in 2018. At this, Supreme Court Bar Association President Dushyant Dave wrote a letter to the secretary general of the court expressing "strong protest" at the expedited hearing of Goswami's case. In the last few years, the Supreme Court has displayed "judicial evasion, judicial deference, and judicial inconsistency" and "The effect of each one has been to benefit the State,"wrote Gautam Bhatia. "Modi has done more to curb press freedom than any prime minister since Indira Gandhi. Foreign correspondents who have written critical pieces on him have found restrictions imposed on their visas. Within India editors have been summarily dismissed for having the wrong attitude," wrote Tavleen Singh. Non-stop propaganda through complete control of the media, a compliant judiciary and surveillance of citizens using any excuse, has elevated Modi to the most popular leader in the whole world. He can do whatever he likes. He does.