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Modi and Trump are known to hold great admiration for each other. Trump calls Modi his ‘true friend’ while Modi adores the vastness of Trump’s business experience. Both are rank outsiders when it comes to the positions that they are occupying. Both came to power promising change. While Trump invoked love of America to swing public mood in his favour, Modi’s devotion to the motherland helped him strike instant chord with the masses. Both have an organic hatred towards the mainstream media, but are sold out to the power and effectiveness of the social media, particularly twitter and facebook.

Who are Rohingyas and why they are migrating en masse from Myanmar? Rohingya is an ethnic community living in Myanmar for centuries but they are not treated as citizens of that country; neither they have voting rights. Denials of these basic rights to Rohingyas even though they have been living in Myanmar for generations, have resulted in revolt in young men of the community and they have become insurgents. The Myanmar army suppressed ruthlessly what they call “insurgency” and many innocent Rohingyas, who had nothing to do with insurgency, suffered. So ruthless was the suppression that a massive exodus of Rohlngyas started to neighbouring Bangladesh and India. So far over four lakh of them have crossed over to Bangladesh and the exodus has been continuing. Thousands of them nearly 40,000, have crossed over to India.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The signs are unmistakable. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Kerala is coming apart at the seams.

BHOPAL: Another calamity awaits Madhya Pradesh due to the failure of rains in several districts of the state. Several legislators, including those belonging to the ruling party, are demanding that areas in their constituencies be declared drought affected. They fear that if urgent steps are not taken to provide relief to farmers, it might affect their prospects in the next Assembly elections.

July the 7th, 2017 is a historical day when the General Assembly of the UN passed a resolution declaring nuclear weapons as illegal. The nuclear ban treaty has opened for signature on 20th September 2017. The treaty prohibits development, testing, production, manufacture, or otherwise acquisition, possession or stockpiling of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, direct or indirect transfer or receiving of nuclear explosive devices and the use or threat to use nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. It also prohibits a country to allow stationing, installation or deployment of any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices in its territory or at any place under its jurisdiction or control.

The Indian economy is in a big mess after 40 months of rule by the NDA government led by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The policy makers in the Prime Minister’s Office(PMO) have no clue on what went wrong and why. It was the PMO which was in the driver’s seat in implementing the economic policies during Modi jamana. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was just an useful stepney. The new Messiah of the BJP, Narendra Modi coined the economic slogans and the programmes in advertising language. This part was not badly done. As the Congress vice-President Rahul Gandhi said at his interaction with the NRIs in USA recently, Mr. Modi is a good communicator and he has skills in this area which are appreciable. Our Prime Minister is a good event manager. But at the end of all theses, the question remains- what has happened to the aam admi many of whom voted the BJP and Modi in May 2014 Lok Sabha elections with great enthusiasm looking for a achhe din?

The reforms of the nineties led to profound changes in the Indian economy. While successive governments made efforts to gear up the reforms to attract investments, there remained many impediments. By and large, India remained a tough place to do business even after the I991 reforms, according to a survey by NITI Aayog – the think tank and adviser to Government of India.

Nitish Kumar is caught in the vortex of the worst crisis of his political life. While his friend turned foe Sharad Yadav is mustering strength and reaching out to the JD(U) rank and file to downsize him in the numbers game, his new-found friend BJP president Amit Shah is on a mission to completely eliminate him from the political landscape of Bihar.

It is now universally recorded that the Indian economy has taken a beating from the abrupt ill-planned demonetisation of November 2016, compounded by the hasty launching of GST, posing new challenges to business, trade and services.

In West Bengal, the present situation in the Darjeeling hills could not be more confusing. The state government, despite its demonstrated inability to hold any official meeting at Darjeeling, claims that the 90-days plus long bandh is all but over and normalcy has ‘almost’ returned.