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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during his Washington sojourn to attend the Fund-Bank annual jamboree maintained in his interactive session with business leaders that addressing the problem of non-performing assets (NPAs) or what is in plain parlance the unrecoverable debts the public sector banks (PSBs) had been saddled with for far too long remains “a very high priority”. Jaitley said this has two aspects. One is to recover what is recoverable. For this the government has created new laws, amended existing laws and have created a new machinery, which will probably take care of it, he said, obviously alluding to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) with its far-reaching beneficial implications to the stakeholders.

There was always an element of unreality in Narendra Modi’s “sab ka saath, sab ka vikas” slogan since the call for all-round development meant the inclusion of Muslims. Given the Sangh Parivar’s decades-old antipathy towards the Muslims and Christians, it was difficult to believe that there had been a change of heart in the saffron camp.

The Chief Election Commissioner A K Joti’s action of not notifying the poll dates for Gujarat while announcing the date for the Himachal Pradesh not only makes his action suspect but is also appalling and unacceptable. Joti is aware of the fundamentals of the logic that any action must have a rational reason. But in this case he refrained from mentioning the reason for not announcing the dates for Gujarat.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly found that the Islamic Republic of Iran has not contravened the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal agreed with Western powers. There is no indication from the U.S. State Department that Iran has not been in compliance with the deal. Donald Trump knows this but is prepared to go down the path of decertification in order to once again open up the prospect of conflict with Iran and reinforce the role of the United States in the Middle East.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The victory of Indian Union Muslim League(IUML) candidate, KNA Khader, in the Vengara by-election was a foregone conclusion. But even the most enthusiastic IUML and United Democratic Front(UDF) activists will concede that it has been a pyrrhic victory, which has grave implications for the party and the UDF, of which IUML is the second most powerful constituent.

The raging debate in the CPI-M about aligning with the Congress to fight against the BJP has brought into focus again the question of the opposition unity and also the relevance of the Left parties. If one looks at 2014 Lok Sabha results, the ruling NDA's vote share was 38.5 per cent and the UPA's was just under 23 per cent leaving out nearly 39 per cent for others. Even though the Left is on the decline with just 4.8 per cent vote share, any secular and democratic front cannot be successful without the presence of the communist parties. So if the opposition is serious about challenging the resurgent BJP, it is imperative for them to come together.

LUCKNOW: The impressive victory of Samajwadi Party-backed Samajwadi Chatra Sabha in the Allahabad Students Union polls has given a big jolt to BJP and it is bound to impact state politics as well.

Debaters wade in row over Indian economic growth and its impact on employment generation, after GDP growth slashed to 5.7 percent in the first quarter of 2017-18. Before election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi committed one crore (10 million) jobs a year. Despite economic growth in full strength during the forty month period of Modi regime, green shoots of job opportunities are not visible. According to Labour Bureau statistics, job creation for 2015 and 2016 (April-December) were at much lower level than committed - 15.5 million and 23.1 million respectively.

Pretense of a perfect camaraderie and bonhomie between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was shattered on the campus of the Patna University. The citizens of Bihar were made to believe that the visit of Modi to Patna University would usher the state into a new dawn of academic excellence that would change the dynamics as well as the dimension of the educational horizon in the state.

In two interesting decisions, earlier this month, the government, on the one hand, exempted the rich from submitting personal documents such as Aadhaar and PAN, for investing over Rs. 50,000 in gold jewellery. On the other, it made the unique identification number (UID) compulsory even for small postal savings in Public Provident Fund (PPF), National Savings Certificate and Kisan Vikas Patra schemes.