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NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India has strongly condemned the unilateral and hurried move of the Election Commission to recommend the disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs for holding ‘office of profit’. The Commission did not bother to hear the AAP leaders on the issue.

The audit of global freedom, the latest report of Freedom House, an independent think-tank that rates free countries and not-free countries, is out and India remains in the ‘free’ category, while China and Russia are not worth the thought much less the description. None of the Gulf countries, not even the UAE, which gives a truly high standard of living to its residents, is ‘free’. Saudi Arabia is an out-and-out monarchy and Crown Prince Salman is a mixture of progressive and regressive. Zimbabwe now has a chance because Robert Mugabe no longer remains at the helm. Most of the rest of Africa remains in the dark zone.

With what face was Prime Minister Narendra Modi preparing to stand up and deliver his plenary address to the World Economic Forum on January 23, 2018 knowing that, only the other day, anti-poverty charity Oxfam had in its report indicted his government of having failed miserably to make a dent on poverty in India? Back of his mind, did it even lurk that one per cent of India’s 125 crore Indians had cornered 73 per cent of the national income generated in 2017?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to India has of course helped India and Israel to normalise their bilateral ties, but more than that it has facilitated Netanyahu to buttress his image back in his country. It is significant that Netanyahu chose to visit India when Israeli people had hit the streets of Tel Aviv demanding his ouster.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) Central Committee’s resolution ruling out any form of electoral understanding or adjustments with the Congress is a political blunder more serious than the one the party committed in 1996.

Tamil Nadu politics is taking an interesting turn after the entry of the two super stars – Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth. After their appearance together recently on the occasion of the 101st birth anniversary of former chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran, who was himself a super star, there are speculations whether the two actors would work together in politics where both are novices.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is cow-friendly to a fault. Soon after the ‘Yogi’ became CM, the state government had unveiled a fleet of ambulances to move ailing cows “to hospital” and everyone cheered. But what about human beings? Is the Hindu chief minister of India’s most populated state even bothered about human casualties? Thursday three Uttar Pradesh cops stood and watched two young boys die on a road in Saharanpur disregarding impassioned pleas to take them to hospital because the blood from the boys will stain their car seats. A video has surfaced of the three faceless policemen’s “bystander apathy”.

It was a gritty court saga out in the open. For the journalist a seemingly impossible heist given to him on a platter even if the limelight was for the four judges alone. But at the end of the day, the January 12 press conference turned out to be an exercise in futility. Nothing changed even after the beans were spilled. Justices Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph stuck their neck out, and for what?

For those who have been anxiously waiting for the CPI(M) central leadership to take a final decision in favour of building a broadbased unity of the democratic and secular forces to fight the BJP and its allies in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the voting outcome at the Sunday’s crucial meeting of the CC. was a big setback. Despite his best efforts, the CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury failed to persuade the Prakash Karat led majority faction to adopt his pragmatic line of building a firm unity of the anti-BJP forces to oust the Narendra Modi government from power. At the 91 member CC, the former general secretary Karat carried the majority with his draft political resolution which says that the party should not enter into any alliance or understanding with the Congress Party. Now as a result of the Karat draft being adopted by a majority of 55 to 31, defeating the draft of Yechury which kept open the line of understanding with the Congress, taking into account the threat from the saffron forces led by the BJP to the Indian nation, there will be only one draft for discussion at the 22nd Party Congress of the CPI(M) being held at Hyderabad from April 18 to April 22 this year.

If proximity to raw materials, abundant supply of water and electricity, availability of trained manpower, port and road connections, nearness of local and export markets and helpful local administration and government are principal pre-conditions for industrial investments, few Indian states can match West Bengal in these regards. Yet, if West Bengal has fallen behind other states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat in attracting fresh industrial investments for years, it is because of a historical perception since the days of Bengal’s Marxist-led Left Front government.