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The government’s privatisation bid in defence equipment production is most welcome. Considering the country’s total annual hi-tech armament requirement, India needs at least half a dozen strong defence manufacturing companies which can initially work as partners of original equipment suppliers. Hi-tech defence manufacturing is not easy. The operational performance of the country’s biggest defence manufacturing company, public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), over the years, may be a good example. HAL has been rapped for inordinate delays in the delivery of Tejas and Sukhoi aircraft to the Indian Air Force (IAF).

2018 will mark one of the most controversial and pathbreaking years in the history of the Indian Judiciary, especially that of the Supreme Court of India. While the year witnessed the landmark judgments in the form of decriminalisation of adult homosexual relations, and adultery, as well as the reiteration of the right to choice in Hadiya’s case, it also saw the complete abdication of the judicial role in many cases, including Judge Loya, Bhima Koregaon arrests, and finally the Rafale defence deal. Most importantly, 2018 would be remembered as the year when the judicial independence was under most threat.

People are talking of the film ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ on Dr. Manmohan Singh. When he was prime minister, Dr Singh was mocked for being allegedly remote-controlled and sentenced to silence by the ‘family behind the throne’. Sanjay Baru, his media advisor, broke the silence and wrote the book ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’. Bollywood picked up the film rights and once more silence is controversy. People are shouting from rooftops.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinaryai Vijayan’s Kasargode to Thiruvananthapuram ‘Women’s Wall’ will be up on New Year, January 1, 2019. It’s a fait accompli. CPM has built human walls in the past. But that doesn’t stop critics. Why a Women’s Wall at this point in time? Is it to divert from the LDF government’s failure to implement the Supreme Court verdict on Sabarimala?

Health is the basic human right. Every person has the right to live a healthy life and contribute effectively to the society’s development. As right to health is included in the directive principles, it becomes the duty of state to provide comprehensive universal healthcare to all citizens. It has to ensure prevention of disease, promotion of good health and rehabilitation of the diseased and the infirm.

The recently held panchayat elections in Assam provided a relief to the BJP, which had lost three Hindi heartland states — Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan to the Congress. BJP won 42 percent and the opposition Congress garnered 34 percent of the total seats in the panchayat elections.

2018 will go down in history as a year in which Indians experienced bouts of ecstasy as well as agony when it came to intrusion of the state into their private lives. We hardly finished celebrating the Supreme Court verdict in Aadhaar case, which upheld privacy as a fundamental right, though with certain riders, drawing strength from the historical verdict of a 9-member bench pronounced a year earlier, unanimously declaring that the citizen’s right to privacy was guaranteed by the Constitution. But as the year wound down to a close, dark clouds hang over the horizon, threatening to undo whatever we had achieved in the past couple of years by way of judicial backing for privacy of the individual.

LUCKNOW: Much significance is being attached to the appointment of Gujarat BJP leader Gordhon Zadafia as UP election in-charge. Political circles wonder how Gordhon Zadafia, who has been a biggest critic of Modi-Shah team, was given charge of one the most important states that sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha.

Loss of three Hindi heart-land states—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh—have sent shockwaves in BJP circles. In a panic reaction, the saffron party made significant concessions to its Bihar allies JD(U) and LJP in seat sharing for the general elections. Swiftly moving to counter the fall-out of ex-ally RLSP joining the UPA and the LJP leader Chirag Paswan making dissenting noises, the BJP has offered JD(U) 17 seats, LJP six seats and an assured Rajya Sabha nomination to Ram Vilas Paswan. Despite contesting 30 seats and winning 22 of them from Bihar in 2014, BJP is now settled for contesting just 17. Despite contesting 30 seats and winning 22 of them from Bihar in 2014, BJP is now settled for contesting just 17.

If India was an Islamic Republic triple-talaq would have gone without a trace and nobody, including AsauddinOwaisi, would have shouted, outshouted the voice of God because “what is wrong in theology cannot be right in law, Sharia”. But India happens to be a multi-religious democracy, with multiple political parties, and Mr Owaisi has the luxury to take cover of that and say, “Not as long as there is Islam, only over my dead body.”