Monkey on our backs.

"Nearly eight decades after the last cheetah was hunted to extinction in India, its cousins from Africa are now here to restore the spots of glory." TOI. "PM Narendra Modi released eight cheetahs to the enclosures inside Kuno National Park in Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh through the apparatus, rotating a lever on Saturday morning. It is also PM Modi's birthday today." "Genetic analysis of wild cheetahs shows they may have survived two historical bottlenecks, events that sharply reduce the size of the population. When this happens, the few remaining individuals end up inbreeding, or mating with relatives." National Geographic. Genetic similarity leads to deformation and diseases. And, "Cheetahs have a low rate of reproductive success, meaning that as a species they are not always able to reproduce." "Cub mortality is higher in protected areas like national parks and wildlife reserves where proximity to larger predators is greater than in non-protected areas. In such areas, the cheetah cub mortality can be as high as 90%." cheetah.org. As of 2018, there are 12,852 leopards in India, of which 3,421 are in Madhya Pradesh. TOI. Cheetahs are not stuffed toys for birthday present. "An e-auction of gifts and souvenirs presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi began on Saturday as the top leader marked his 72nd birthday." TN. Two days before that, Modi "said Rajpath symbolised India's 'slavery' and has now been consigned to history as he inaugurated the revamped stretch with a new name, Kartavya Path, and unveiled a statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at India Gate." BS. Anything to get in the news. But, ominously, 'kartavya' means 'duty', so whose duty is it, the government's or the people's? "In many of his actions, instincts and most importantly his approach to the practice of power, he echoes Mrs (Indira) Gandhi," wrote Shekhar Gupta. On Kartavya Path "What Modi has been doing there is putting the monkey on the citizen's back, by shifting the definition of the constitutional state from the government's duties to the citizen." If 'Rajpath' signified slavery to the white British, 'Kartavya Path' signifies slavery to our brown masters. We still remain slaves. Oppression of citizens could not be possible without extreme sycophancy. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharman was enraged because there was no picture of Modi in a government fair price shop in Telangana. ET. She does not know that subsidised food is paid for, not by Modi, but by taxes paid by the people. A Parliamentary panel blamed the government for the large number of deaths due to inadequate vaccination and lack of oxygen during the Covid epidemic last year. DH. An estimated 3.4-4.7 million people died during the pandemic in India, 10 times the government's count of 414,482. npr. Modi's "push to boost domestic manufacturing of defense systems is leaving India vulnerable to persistent threats from China and Pakistan. DH. Duty for us, posturing for him. Will India survive?