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A Parliamentary committee strongly favoured cap on airfare and luggage rates in various sectors and pulled up airlines for hoodwinking passengers by not passing on to passengers cut in excise duty on aviation turbine fuels besides criticising poor food quality and inconvenient airlines seating arrangements.

Finance minister Piyush Goyal’s exuberance over finally getting a grip on the banks’ bad debts might be a little too early. While the latest financial stability report of the Reserve Bank of India showing marginal decline in the non-performing assets (NPA) is a welcome sign, this is yet too little again. After the absolute volume of gross bad debts is so huge, cleaning this Augean stable might take a very long time –maybe, a decade, if we keep persisting at it.

Keeping track of the Trump administration’s foreign policy is like trying to track a cat on a hot tin roof: We’re pulling out of Syria (not right away). We’re leaving Afghanistan (sometime in the future). Mexico is going to pay for a wall (no, it isn’t). Saudi Arabia, Russia, the European Union, China, Turkey, North Korea—one day, friends, another day, foes. Even with a scorecard, it’s hard to tell who’s on first.

What began with an attack on the powers of the Delhi government to govern in accordance with the Constitution, has ended with an attack on the West Bengal government to govern in accordance with the Constitution. The NDA government at the Centre appears to think that the CBI has the right to destroy the federal character of the Constitution.

The regional parties will be the king-makers in the ensuing Lok Sabha polls. Even the New York Times on Sunday pointed out, “Most analysts believe neither Mr. Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, nor the Indian National Congress Party will win an outright majority. That means regional and caste-based parties will probably become the kingmakers…. .” Despite the massive ‘Modi wave,’ the combined strength of the regional parties in 2014 was 212 seats, which shows they cannot be ignored. Their vote share also was almost equal. Regional satraps like Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha) and J Jayalalithaa (Tamil Nadu) held their sway over their respective states.

Currently, West Bengal is witnessing a political chaos with state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee staging dharna against CBI at Metro Channel in Kolkata accusing the centre for using the institutions to get political mileage ahead of the general polls. However, in the midst of all the Mamata vs CBI drama, another significant political development ignored is the Left Front, which ruled the state for 34 years and presently is relegated to the third position behind the BJP, is showing signs of revival.

Going for the Congress in Bihar does not appear to be tough. The February 3 Jana Akansha Rally of Congress held after 28 years at Patna’s Gandhi maidan made it explicit that Congress has gained considerable ground in the state in the recent months and is not the spent force as is being made out. What was quite noticeable was the turn out of the youngsters. Even its political opponents conceded the fact that the show was quite impressive.

Although Arun Jaitley has not been in the pink of health, he is still an indefatigable blogger for the BJP.

Weekly Round-Up of Major Decisions of the Courts in India as also Legal Policy Developments

Full marks to Finance Minister Piyush Goyal for presenting an interim budget that could as well be described as the first draft of the ruling party’s election manifesto. Suffice it say that the political mission of this budget may not be easy to emulate by the opposition. Legally speaking, the budget provisions are valid only until the next government presents a new budget for the fiscal, 2019-20. The reliefs and concessions are offered mainly to small farmers and unorganised workers. Their actual financial impact on the government expenditure is understandably unclear. No going government is expected to impose fresh taxes for the interim period. The indirect taxes are not in Goyal's hand. It is largely regulated by the GST Council. By convention, tax proposals are not announced in interim budgets. Goyal has merely given some small financial sops to tax payers at the bottom. Contrary to the given perception, middle-class gets little from the budget. Other seemingly poll-linked multiple budget concessions to the underprivileged may only mean much higher budget deficit for 2018-19 than estimated in the document.