Cool breeze: Trumped

Everyone knew that Donald Trump would not fade into the sunset quietly but no one expected fireworks at such scale. The storming of the Capitol Hill has created quite a stir on social media, with everyone taking a dig at this powerful nation that had loved to sermonise the rest of the world from its perch on Capitol Hill. Here are some of the memes doing the rounds.

Tareekh Pe Tareekh

Talks between the farmers and the government have reached the bizarre “tareekh pe tareekh” stage as one round simply leads to the next. The farmers are adamant that they want nothing short of a rollback, while the government does not want to set a precedent where it is seen to be blackmailed. It would much prefer a clause by clause discussion where it can even give in to the farmers’ demands but give itself some leeway to spin this surrender in its favour in the media. While most of the media has shifted its focus away from the protests, the farmers are busy uploading videos on YouTube channels that are getting a fair amount of hits. In keeping with the times the videos have catchy sound-bites and are not very lengthy. Clearly, the farmers from Punjab are quick learners in the art of social media to get their “mann ki baat” across.

Turning Crisis into Opportunity

As the year turns, there has been a perceptible shift in the tone of the government’s reach-out to the farmers. The general view in the government seems to be to keep the talks going but leave the solution to the courts. The farmers have complained that the ministers are always late at the meetings and the tone is set by Agriculture Minister Narendra Tomar stating categorically that there will be no rollback of the laws. Then, a video of Cabinet Minister Piyush Goyal went viral where he is heard telling the leaders “not to open their mouths” as he had a list of 40 organisations that were at the protest site. Later the minister downplayed these comments, stating that actually he saw these talks in a positive light, for no good work is easy, difficulties always arise, it’s how we deal with them. Adding that he saw these talks more as “opportunities” than “challenges”.