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During his one-and-a-half day’s stay in India, President Donald Trump successfully persuaded a cash-strapped and recession-hit India into signing defence contracts worth $3 billion. Never mind that India’s trade deficit with the USA stood at an astronomical $23,255.9 million by 2019 end. What is obvious is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s slogan of “Make in India” does not apply to the defence sector. Here, the policy is “Make in USA, buy and use in India.”

Magnificent pageantry, super optics and perfect platitudes. The much-trumpeted POTUS visit to India produced all this, but very little beyond. Of course, it generated a lot of hot air, creating a bit of ‘western disturbance’ which, however, did not induce any rain.

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, must be channelling the spirit of Houdini as he continues to plot his escape from one of the most convoluted political dilemmas in Israel’s history.

The red-baiting of Sen. Bernie Sanders has been stepped up as we near the date of the important South Carolina primary election on February 29. “Liberal” pundits have accused him of everything from supporting “Marxist dictators” like Fidel Castro to singing the praises of chandeliers installed in the Moscow subways by the communist dictators of old. “You don’t ever talk about the wonderful chandeliers in the Moscow subways when you have Stalin killing 30 million of his own people,” Joe Scarborough declared on Morning Joe today. “With his praise of dictators, who does Bernie remind you of?” Joe’s wife, Mika Brzezinski, then asked.

The India-US Joint Statement of February 25 said that both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and USA President Donald Trump vowed to strengthen their Global Strategic Partnership by deepening defence and security cooperation, through maritime and space domain exercises, sharing information, exchanging military liaison and so on. Focus was given to make Indo-Pacific region a free, open, inclusive and peaceful area.

With the explosion of Information Technology and growing knowledge economy, cybercrime has increased manifold with multiple forms and multi-dimensional character having a deleterious effect on the society. Tackling cybercrime, therefore, has thrown major challenges for the law enforcing agencies, especially police in India. Accordingly, National Cybercrime Reporting Portal, set up in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and operationalized since August 30, 2019, has reported 33,152 cybercrime incidents till January 30, 2020. Out of the total cybercrime reported, 790 FIRs have been registered. Complaints are dealt with by the law enforcing agencies.

Income inequality is increasing worldwide and within specific nations, and that’s producing political turmoil, too, a recent United Nations report says. “Rising inequality creates discontent, political dysfunction and can lead to violent conflict,” the report warns, in a statement buried deep in its 218 pages.

It may appear to be preposterous assumption that former prime minister and senior Labour leader Tony Blair is envisioning to stage a comeback to the centre stage of the Labour politics, but the way he has launched an all-out attack on Jeremy Corbyn and his ideological stance and also suggesting alternative mechanism to enliven the party, purely strengthens this impression amongst the political circle.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The recovery of live bullets, suspected to have been made in Pakistan and China, has touched off a lively debate in the State.

The only visible programme arranged for the visiting American First Lady Melania Trump, apart from posing for photographs with the background of the iconic Taj Mahal and waving at the massive crowds lustily greeting the American First Couple in Ahmedabad, was a visit to a Delhi government school on Tuesday. This was the first time that any US First Lady had visited schools in India.