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Nirav Modi – Baby Face Nirav! He reminds us of the American gangster of the 1930s, Public Enemy No.1 ‘Baby Face Nelson’. Both small guys with big dreams, banks their weakness. George ‘Baby Face’ Nelson robbed banks with loaded guns. ‘Baby Face Nirav’ fraudulently unloaded cash from banks with loaded Letters of Undertakings.

"More than China... India should play a better role in Maldives than any other countries because we are neighbours. And we have been friends". This is a simple sentence but diplomatically this remark from Ahmed Mohamed, Maldives’ ambassador to India, has wider ramifications. Through his one liner he was holding India responsible for the present crisis.

Economic growth in Asia is estimated to continue at a steady pace in 2017 in comparison to 2016, but India’s growth is expected to nudge downwards as a result of taxation and monetary reforms, though expected to stay brisk, says the latest OECD bi-annual publication on regional economic growth titled ‘Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia, China, and India 2018: Fostering Growth through Digitalization. Growth in China and ASEAN is picking up due to a strong trade rebound and resilient domestic consumption.

It is rather irritatingly repetitive that borrowers jump their loans with banks. More so, large borrowers, who are themselves hugely rich, are making away with bank money. Details are now emerging, which show the ultimate hit on the banking system could top Rs20,000 crore. Maybe even more.

The draft political resolution released by the CPI(M) for debate among its members on the eve of the 22nd Congress of the Party at Hyderabad on April 18 to 22 this year, is full of contradictory positions. The document prepared by former general secretary of the Party Prakish Karat dashes all hopes of the possibility of building a broad front of the secular and democratic forces including the Congress Party to confront the BJP and its allies in the coming Lok Sabha elections. Though the draft mentions that the main task is to defeat the BJP and its allies by rallying all the secular and democratic forces, it adds “however, this has to be done without having an understanding or electoral alliance with the Congress Party”.

Kamran Yusuf is a Kashmiri photo-journalist. The other day, the National Investigative Agency (NIA) while branding him a ‘stone-pelter’, claimed that he is not a ‘real journalist’ because he never covered developmental projects as genuine journalists do! The “hard-working” freelance photo-journalist has been in detention since September last year.

BHOPAL: Two former chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh by their actions and utterances are keeping their colleagues and party men in suspense. They are Digvijay Singh and Uma Bharti, two rivals. It was Uma Bharti who through her massive and stormy campaign ended the ten year rule of Digvijay Singh, the first politician to rule Madhya Pradesh for continuous ten years. But Bharti overthrew him. Her slogan was that Digvijay had failed on all fronts particularly on “Sadak, Pani and Bijli. The defeat saw Digvijay Singh announce that he would not accept any office for next ten years.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Communist Party of India(Marxist) has come under greater pressure with the arrest of two party workers in connection with the murder of Youth Congress activist Shuhaib.

So who should hang from the rafters for the massive PNB Nirav Modi Scam – the UPA or the NDA? That is apart from nephew Nirav Modi and uncle Choksi and the one or two or scores of PNB officials who enacted the scam for the diamond merchants of India-New York-London-Antwerp-Hong Kong-Singapore-Macau-Malaysia… Clearly, unlike diamonds, scams cannot be ‘forever’.

The 38th prime minister of Nepal Khadga Prasad (KP) Sharma Oli, the chairman of Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist), will 'balance between India and China’, believes editor of Nepal Times, despite his pro-Beijing propensity (a compulsion due to the Madhesi blockade of Nepal in 2015, for which as the PM in his first term), thanks to the successful persuasion by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who led an Indian delegation earlier this month. Swaraj had parleys with not only leaders of CPN (UML), which has 121 members in the 275-member parliament, but the top brass of CPN (Maoist Center) including its chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal a k a Dahal. There are 53 Maoist MPs. The oath-taking ceremony was administered by President Bidhya Devi Bhandari at her official residence in Sheetal Niwas, Kathmandu on Thursday. Oli apart, Lal Babu Pandit and Tham Maya Thapa too sworn in as Minister for Population and Environment and Women, Children and Social Welfare respectively.