View Articles

The prime minister, Narendra Modi thinks himself to be the most intelligent and wise person. It is not his fault. Everyone treats himself as the most intelligent person in the world. But the only exception between Modi’s intelligence and other’s is Modi is exposed every time he opens his mouth. For his partymen and saffron vigilantes he might be speaking the truth, nothing but truth, but a common Indian knows that he was speaking the lies and only lies.

The Rajiv Gandhi/INS Viraat controversy, instigated by a Prime Minister who refuses to be in the present but likes to meander in the past, largely to influence the present, resurrects memories in teenagers and youth of the mid-1980s, especially those of the Lakshadweep islands, for whom the visit of a Prime Minister of India into the archipelago was exciting times though it was impossible for anybody to get a glimpse of the elite VVIP party getting a layer of sand on their skin.

While the decisive moment for the ruling dispensation at the centre is impending, more with a possibility of losing the seat of power, it is shocking that the Election Commission (EC) which is tasked to conduct elections in a free and fair manner has stepped in to provide a helping hand to the ruling party by its lenient and outright partisan approach in dealing with serious and totally unacceptable violations of model code of conduct by the prime minister and BJP president. The model code of conduct has no meaning for the ruling party. With the EC openly protecting them, they continue to incite and polarize voters in the name of religion and national defence.

ONGC, the once-glittering and now struggling Maharatna, best exemplifies the fact that there is something sinister in the very approach of the outgoing Modi Government towards the public sector enterprises (PSUs). In May 2019, the cash reserves of ONGC, the richest PSU, had fallen in the last two years of Modi Government to a miserable Rs.167 crore. As it needs at least Rs.100,000 crore including Rs.5000 crore in cash to meet working capital requirements per annum including for paying salaries, ONGC executives are running to banks and executives of PSBs already saddled with NPAs are hesitant to infuse more loans in view of precarious financial position of the ONGC.

As is usually the case with his keynote speeches, Jeremy Corbyn’s launch of Labour’s European election campaign on Thursday was well judged. Unsurprisingly the election, like the locals earlier this month, looks set to be dominated by Brexit.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari revoking the controversial order stalling all highway development work in Kerala, a confrontation between the State and the Centre has been averted.

BHOPAL: Voters of eight constituencies of Madhya Pradesh will choose their representatives to Lok Sabha on May 12. This will be the third phase of polling in Madhya Pradesh. The eight constituencies are Bhopal, Bhind, Guna, Gwalior, Morena, Rajgarh, Sagar and Vidisha.

After the end of the first five phases of polling in the elections to the 17th Lok Sabha, the trends are giving a definite pointer to the emergence of a hung new house in which no national party will have majority to form the government on its own. So far, polling has been held to 425 seats and the indications suggest that the BJP has got a big jolt in the Hindi heartland of the country and this has eroded the great advantage which the saffron party got in 2014 in securing a whopping 282 seats out of 543.The BJP as also NDA will fall short substantially of the majority figure of 272, but the extent of this shortfall is of crucial importance in deciding the fate of the next government.

Cuba’s government has hit back at President Donald Trump’s latest threat to implement a “full and complete” blockade after accusing the Caribbean island of “controlling Venezuela.”

Weekly Round-Up of Major Decisions of the Courts in India as also Legal Policy Developments