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BHOPAL: Results of the local body elections in Madhya Pradesh are invariably considered to be trend setter for the forth coming Vidhan Sabha elections. Judging from this criterion, results of elections held in 43 local bodies in the state should be taken as warning bell for the Bharatiya Janata Party which is in power in Madhya Pradesh since 2003 and will go to Assembly poll in 2018.

Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pedneker starrer Toilet: Ek Prem Katha is not only about Swachh Bharat (Clean India) but also about women empowerment. This film is a biopic of Anita Narre from Madhya Pradesh, who deserted her husband’s house as her in-laws didn't have a toilet.

During the recently concluded elections in 7 civic bodies in West Bengal’s Durgapur and other areas, Congress and Left front (mainly of the CPI(M)) workers openly campaigned together against the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidates. In the process both sides defied their leaders, boldly opposing the new clarion call circulating among non-BJP opposition parties for a ‘total opposition unity’.

If there is any lesson to be learnt from the 59-day long indefinite Darjeeling bandh called by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), it is that political flexibility is tactically ever superior to reckless militancy.

Even as former vice-president, Hamid Ansari, walks into the sunset at the end of his term with the abuses of the Hindutva trolls ringing in his ears, it is possible to predict that no other Muslim will adorn a high constitutional position as long as the Narendra Modi government is in power.

The tragic death of more than 70 children in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh this week has brought to the fore the dismal failure of the successive governments both at the Centre and in the states to deliver health care to the people who have voted them to power. It is gross negligence, which has resulted in tragedies like what we have witnessed in Gorakhpur and elsewhere. India is perhaps one country where human life does not get the attention it needs if one looks at the plight of the patients in various government and even private hospitals.

The battle lines were drawn at least three months ago. But the real battle started last week with Nitish Kumar inflicting the first assault. In a swift action, he removed, rebel Rajya Sabha MP, Sharad Yadav as leader of the party in the house. Moments after Nitish made known his mind, Bihar JD(U) president Vashishtha Narayan met Vice President Venkaiah Naidu and gave in writing that the party has elected RCP Singh as its leader in the Rajya Sabha." Sharad was shown the door. Significantly, Narayan described it as a "necessary" call taken by the party leadership. "(It was) a necessary step because if a person indulges in anti-party activities it has to be condemned unanimously".

India is entering the Seventieth anniversary of its Independence in 2017, with far greater challenges to confront in a topsy-turvy world, which sees a sudden resurgence of forces of white supremacists and neo-Nazists, right in the heart of world’s oldest democracy. These may be of no concern for us but our own ‘nationalisms’ should be held within our Constitutional bounds.

Did the latest India-Japan move to transform the road infrastructure in India’s north-eastern region make China try to hastily build a road through hitherto demilitarised Doklam plateau in the strategic India-Bhutan-China trijunction and its military standoff following India’s resistance? Incidentally, Japan’s joining hands with India to build ‘Asia-Africa Growth Corridor’ (AAGC) was first unveiled in May, 2017 at the 52nd annual meeting of the African Development Bank (AfDB) at Gujarat’s Gandhinagar. The India-Japan initiative on the ambitious infrastructure project did not seem to have gone down well with China. This is despite the fact that China is engaged in undertaking massive, unilateral infrastructure initiatives under the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) project connecting it with Europe, parts of Asia, including China-Pakistan economic corridor, and Africa. Japan is already working with India to build infrastructure in Iran. Now, AAGC is a big initiative. It will serve as a great trade, commerce and strategic link among a large number of countries in the region.

India’s IT boom was never an accident. It wasn’t planned either. It just happened; more importantly, despite the government. This does not mean our government in particular was anti-technology. In fact, that is the case with all countries where the IT revolution took hold. IT development was the product of an ecosystem in which governments had very little role to play. And it is good that they didn’t force one. For, whenever the governments intervened, it was aimed at controlling. Mercifully, the attempt to exercise control has come only after technology came into its own.