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The stage is set for the next Lok Sabha elections in India within 2018. The way the country’s economic and political situation is developing, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot take the risk of waiting till the scheduled period of April/May 2019 for holding the Lok Sabha elections. All studies prepared by the BJP think tanks have indicated that the situation is changing very fast against the BJP and the more time is given to the opposition, the BJP will be loser.After the drubbing at theby elections in Rajasthan, reports from Madhya Pradesh about the political mood in the current by elections campaign, have also given signal that the Modi wave is fast waning and the Congress organization is consolidating quite fast under the leadership of the President Rahul Gandhi.

Is the government really serious about the newly proposed insurance-backed national health protection scheme (NHPS) in the budget? Probably not. It may protect insurance firms and private healthcare outfits, but not the common man’s health. Only public hospitals, well-equipped public medical centres, dedicated physicians and para-medical staff and affordable medicines can help protect the health of the public. Not insurance companies. Not certainly in India where healthcare facilities are under acute shortage. Moreover, limited individual health insurance benefit does not cover even a fraction of highly inflated medicare costs in private hospitals and clinics.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It has, once again, been an unremitting tale of neglect of Kerala in the Union Budget.

Indians gave the zero to the world. Indian sages understood zero to mean absolute nothingness as well as its potential for infinite power. For them, the zero was not just an entity in the place value system, it had a philosophical connotation. The quintessential Indian spirituality saw everything originating in shunya, the Indian word for zero, and ending up in shunya, or nirvana, a state of total bliss in which nothing mattered. There are even suggestions that the mathematical zero originated in the spiritual shunya. Saffron elements are now going out of their way to re-discover and re-establish ancient Indian knowledge, though mostly for the wrong reasons. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has done his bit, adding to the mysticism of zero, conjuring up a figure that would set us on an astronomical odyssey. But there is a lurking suspicion that in the process he may have placed Indians on the wrong side of zero.

The war between the Trump Administration and the FBI reflects a deep division in the U.S. capitalist ruling class that could have far-reaching consequences for the progressive movement. The immediate cause stems from the investigation by Robert Mueller into Trump’s ties with the Russians, his collusion with their effort to interfere in the 2016 election, and his efforts to “obstruct justice” by sabotaging Mueller’s probe.

The Congress won the Rajasthan by-polls even as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was rolling out Budget 2018-19, which the Congress said was a “flop”. A question being asked is: what is the Karni Sena celebrating about? One report said Karni Sena members broke out in lusty cheers, began to sing and dance with wild abandon, and set off fireworks, and “generally created celebratory mayhem”.

I had privilege of covering two elections – 1962 and 1967 – when the polls to the Lok Sabha and State assemblies were held simultaneously. I have seen closely the strain it put on the state election commission and Chief Election Officer. It was a massive exercise for the Election Commission too after every five years. The governance, no doubt, then was better. One advantage to the ruling dispensation, at that time, was that most of the states and Centre were ruled by one party that is Congress.

Budget 2018-19 is a pre-election budget with a large number of schemes for deprived sections, from farmers to women to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and senior citizens. There are increases in expenditures on many existing schemes for the poor and in the rural areas but the hard arithmetic is in the detail.

The Congress is asking for an independent probe of the “truth” in the death of Judge M H Loya, “independent” meaning no involvement of the CBI and NIA. A bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Mishra is hearing petitions asking for an investigation. The Congress wants a Special Investigation Team (SIT).

Stung by the India shining campaign of ruling NDA in 2004, which did not go well with rural India and hence defeated in the elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has come out with an election budget that brings cheers to struggling Bharat, hit by farm distress and collapse of informal sector in rural economy.