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BHOPAL: Aam Aadmi Party in Madhya Pradesh is preparing for the upcoming Assembly elections with a strategy to reach every household. For the past one year, AAP has been strengthening its organizational setup in the state. The party is focusing on Poha Choupal and Kisan Yatra to connect with people while selection process for candidates is on with the active involvement of national leaders.

It seems April 2 will for ever remain as a landmark day in the history of Independent India, particularly with regard to Dalit politics, which is acquiring a hitherto undiscovered dimension. The spontaneous response to the Bharat Bandh call – it wasn’t clear by whom until later when more clarity emerged – has rattled the ruling establishments, political parties and above all the current crop of exploitative Dalit political leaders, who claim to represent the country’s 30 crore Dalits.

If a coalition government becomes inevitable after 2019 Lok Sabha election, who will head it? This was the subject of an animated discussion in Central Hall of Parliament. Given the current political scenario, there is remote possibility of any party getting majority, so thought some former Parliament members. The BJP will try to win sympathy for PM by making it a Narendra Modi versus the rest. The Congress’s recent resolve to adopt a ‘pragmatic’ approach to align with like minded parties to defeat BJP and RSS is noticeable. Rahul Gandhi has been reaching out to some of the state satraps like Sharad Pawar. With Rahul unlikely to be accepted as the head of a coalition government — unless the Congress gets 200 seats, which looks unlikely—would Sonia Gandhi prefer a non-Congress leader?

BHOPAL: Two recent events are expected to re-shape politics in Madhya Pradesh. One relates to the conclusion of Narmada Parikrama by Digvijay Singh. He along with his wife Amrita Rai covered a distance of 3,325 kms in six months. A grand concluding programme was held at the Barman bank of Narmada. It is claimed that more than a lakh people attended the religious function held to mark the conclusion of the parikrama. The chief guest at programme was Shankracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi made two important statements on a single day, that too within a couple of hours; he accused the Congress of killing democracy by not allowing parliament to function even for a day and second, he accused the Opposition, especially the Congress of disintegrating the society by fanning communal tension.

India might not be facing a balance of payment crisis now as in 1991, which forced government of the day to go for drastic reforms that opened up the economy. The country has come a long way since then. From $1.7 billion of foreign exchange reserves, enough to meet just two weeks of imports, it was now over $420 billion to meet nearly a year’s imports. India’s balance of payments might now be well balanced but the question: is India out of the woods as far as external sector is concerned and the answer is certainly a big ‘NO’.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continues to increase its coffers at a big speed taking advantage of the Party ruling at the centre and in 21 of the total 29 states in the country. There is nothing new in the latest report of the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) about the number one position of BJP among the political parties in terms of getting political donations, but what is revealing is that the gap between the BJP and the main opposition Congress has widened very fast and in 2016-17 the BJP claimed an income of Rs. 1,000 crore forming 66.34 per cent of the total income of the national parties added together during the year. The , BJP’s income increased by 81 per cent from Rs. 570 crore in 2015-16 to Rs. 1003 crore in 2016-17 while the income of the Congress party declined by 14 per cent from Rs. 261 crore to Rs. 225 crore. This means that in 2016-17, the BJP’s income was more than four times of the Congress which was the major national political party of the country after independence.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s new discretionary budget will shovel 61 percent of the country’s social oxygen into the Pentagon’s fiery furnace. That’s $727 billion worth of schools, libraries, green jobs and infrastructure, housing, hospitals, nutritional support, healthcare, and other social needs that will go unmet.

Teachers say academic stress is to blame for sharp rise in mental illnesses in children. Kids are self-harming and contemplating suicide in Britain in the face of constant exams and a narrow curriculum, teachers have warned.

LUCKNOW: BJP seems to be in serious crisis, prompting party national president Amit Shah to visit the state and interact with state BJP leaders and ministers. The defeat in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha by-elections has already shocked BJP central leadership.