View Articles

If in Uttar Pradesh, take care. There are people there with the Yogi-given licence to kill. Desi James Bonds. Bounty Hunters. Most of them on the loose in UP’s Wild West – Shamli, Muzaffarpur, Saharanpur, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Baghpat, Kairana, Greater Noida, Noida – Right next door!

There was a warning before the shelling started, a megaphone blaring from across the border, asking the people of Silikote, the last village on the LoC in Uri, to “not waste time” and get the hell out, and away. Within the hour, when the shelling started, only the soldiers remained. They and the Bofors guns. The Indian Army retaliated with equal if not greater intensity to the Pakistani shelling.

Strategically, China may appear to be India’s No. 1 adversary, but Chinese investors look at India through totally different glasses. They see fast-growing democratic India, having strong legal framework and independent judiciary, a very safe and attractive place to invest their millions for easy and quick returns. They seem to be less concerned about military build-ups from both sides across the 3,440-km long Line of Actual Control (LAC) from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh. India’s growing economic friction with China on account of its massive trade deficit — to be close to $60 billion during this fiscal — and imposition of higher import duties in the 2018-19 budget, are a greater concern. The intelligent Chinese business community would rather invest and make in India to keep multiplying their income than be victim of China’s diplomatic and trade tussle with India.

The government is keen to make agriculture policies and programs 'income centric' instead of 'production-oriented'. It has been revealed by Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Radha Mohan Singh while addressing the National Conference on “Agriculture 2022 – Doubling Farmers’ Income”. Such policy experiments in agriculture, if government goes ahead with it, may sabotage food self-sufficiency at national level, which we have achieved through decades of hard work, though food self-sufficiency at individual level has remained a dream to be realized. The nation could not afford to let agriculture production to fall, and focus only on doubling the farm income by 2022 as Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced in April 2017.

Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Arvind Subramanian was correct in his observation that internal controls and external regulatory systems in public sector banks have broken down. But what is really disturbing and at the same time scandalous is his assiduous silence on identifying the nature of the Rs 11,500-crore Punjab National Bank fraud.

It is not just a question of boycotting a proposed Joint Parliamentary Committee probe against Nirav Modi looting a PSU bank of Rs 11,000 crore: in Bengal, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) has also blocked a State Assembly discussion on a controversial public religious conversion by militant Hindus. On both issues, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), palpably on the ropes, has won much-needed relief.

Delhi’s unique position as the union capital, under the Constitution, has led to constant tension between the Centre and the state government. If the governments at the two centres of power are of the same party, there is less bickering. In the event, however, of two different political parties ruling the Centre and Delhi, there is bound to be trouble, as in the present case. There has been constant trouble between the BJP-led government at the Centre and Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party government. This is not to justify the midnight drama at Kejriwal’s residence wherein in the presence of the Chief Minister, the Chief Secretary was reportedly roughed up. This is, perhaps, the first instance of this type and needs to be condemned and dealt with firmly.

The issue of exorbitant profit on drugs has been highlighted in the past few months. Several civil society organisations including the All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN) and Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare (ADEH) have been taking up this issue for long and have submitted memoranda to the government several times. Now the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has also admitted this fact. Public outcry and media reporting in this regard in the wake of hefty bills by some corporate hospitals even when the patients could not survive have brought the issue more in to focus and decision making bodies have started showing some sensitivity.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A polite but firm message to the Kerala unit of the CPI(M) from general secretary Sitaram Yechury; a public rebuff of Kannur CPI(M) secretary, P. Jayarajan; and an open expression of warmth towards Kerala Congress(M) chief K M Mani by CPI(M) leaders, EP Jayarajan and A Vijayaraghavan. These were the highlights of the first day of the CPI(M)’s State conference.

Army chief Gen. Bipin Rawat draws a link between the AIDUF’s expansion in Assam to a ‘planned illegal immigration’ taking place because of a ‘proxy war’ engineered by Pakistan and China and all hell breaks loose. ‘Muslimeen’ politician Asauddin Owaisi promptly attacks the Chief and the rest of them follow suit – the Congress Party, Brinda Karat, Majeed Memon... CPI leader Atul Anjaan equates Gen. Rawat to fanatic Pakistan dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, much to the outrage of the BJP.