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Ten months after she lost the presidential bid, Hillary Clinton is back in the news with the release of her new memoir What Happened last week. The 494-page post-2016 presidential poll analysis offers an intimate account of her life after her losing the elections and an analysis of her defeat. Hillary continues to be a polarizing figure even after her defeat. The new book has evoked a fair amount of criticism as well as support.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Will the ‘consensus election’ move to decide the new Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president end the current face-off between the two dominant groups in the State unit of the Congress, led by former chief minister Oommen Chandy and the present leader of the opposition Ramesh Chennithala?

Pushed to the wall by rebel tribals for his obscured design to dilute the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act 1908 and the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act of 1876, BJP chief minister Raghubar Das of Jharkhand has been trying to polarise the adivasi population on communal lines; Sarana versus Christian tribals. In this bid he has also made a serious allegation of conversion of the Sarna and Hindu adivasis by the Christian missionaries.

BJP president and Rajya Sabha member Amit Shah may be absolutely right on his assessment that demonetisation has forced black money into formal economy even as RBI’s annual report said that 99 per cent of scrapped currency after the demonetisation were deposited with banks. Shah had recently told businessmen at a special FICCI session in Delhi that the formal economy would now grow and black money would be scrutinised and taxed. However, the BJP president’s predictions about both the economic growth and tracing and taxing black money depositors are yet to come true, even ten months after demonetisation. In fact, the economic growth is limping at around 5.7 per cent. Massive imports in the last five months, largely from China, are further choking the growth and swelling India’s current account deficit (CAD). At such a slow growth rate, the country would lose nearly $500 billion (Rs. 35 trillion) in terms of actual GDP, if compared to the earlier projected growth rate of over 7.6 per cent, this year.

Reprieve from the Patna High Court to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the case related to the murder of a Congress worker, Sitaram Singh, 18 years ago has proved to be short lived. Though the High Court stayed issuing of the summons against him by the subordinate court, the Supreme Court, in response to a petition, has sent a notice to the Election Commission seeking its views on the disqualification of Nitish.

Berkeley is easily Rahul Gandhi’s best performance so far. The Congress vice president has come a long way since his first interview with Arnab Goswami for his former Times Now channel, which put the social media on fire accusing the interviewer of being a paedophile for asking tormenting questions, and the Bangalore University address where the students nearly heckled him for his unacceptable observations.

BHOPAL: Eyebrows were raised when the Madhya Pradesh government decided to sanction pension to even such MISA detenus who were kept in prison for one day. The government also decided to relax the earlier condition that a person will be recognised as a MISA detenu only wenn the claim is endorsed by two such persons already getting MISA prisoner pension.

The BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi are determined to make Rahul Gandhi a leader by keeping the Congress Vice-President in focus. Credit also partly goes to government blunders that seem to have infused a new life in Rahul Gandhi’s otherwise not so impressive political career.

Critical to any business is stability especially in prices to enable easy planning and execution. When there is volatility in the rupee exchange rate, exporters or importers usually demand stability in exchange rate even if there is sharp depreciation. It is no different when it comes to oil prices in the country as volatile prices hurt not only industry but also agriculture as every activity is dependent on oil.

Germany is heading for general elections on September 24 this year amidst turmoil in Europe and the European Union following the Britain’s decision to leave EU and the increasing activities of the rightist nationalist elements in different countries of Europe. The present Chancellor Angela Merkel belonging to the Conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) took office in 2005 and if her party wins the elections this month, she will be the Chancellor of Germany for the fourth time. Latest poll trends indicate that she has a comfortable lead over her main rival Martin Schulz of the SPD and there is not much possibility of the SPD candidate’s fortunes changing much in the next few days of the campaign. Schulz began his campaign in February with big hopes but the confused policies of the SPD regarding the economic policies and immigration hit adversely his campaign prospects in the midway and at the fag end of the electoral battle, the SPD seems to give all the impression of a loser.