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Bribing voters from public podium! How will it be done without plunging the country’s economy in a tailspin? The economics doesn’t agree with the arithmetic; hell, the econometrics is beyond the math. But then, who cares how it’s done, so long as it’s done? It’s philanthropy of the highest order, ask Bill Gates. And there’s no sin in it.

BHOPAL: On the eve of Lok Sabha elections strange things are happening in both Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party.

Ever since the 2017 UP assembly election, BJP has been trying to counter Ambedkar's influence by projecting some lesser known dalit leaders and trying to exploit the differences amongst dalit sub castes.

West Bengal has so far organized four Bengal Global Summits and the fifth one is on the way in February. Sarcastically, each summit raised big hopes for investment, but all those hopes were belied. In the previous summit, big houses queued up and they were upbeat on making investments. They included the likes of L.N. Mittal, Mukesh Ambani, Kishore Byani and Sajjan Jindal and announced big plans, reposing trust in Mamata’s slogan 'Bengal means business'. Mukesh Ambani even predicted that 'West Bengal will be Best Bengal'.

Priyanka Gandhi’s entry into big-time politics from having been a part-time caretaker of the two family boroughs of Amethi and Rae Bareli of the Nehru-Gandhis has set the cat among the pigeons.

The Congress President Rahul Gandhi has touched the right cord by announcing at a Party rally in Raipur on Monday that the Congress, if elected to power after the coming Lok Sabha elections, will implement the minimum income programme for the poor. If the declaration is not taken as a sort of one-upmanship against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is planning to announce some form of income support to the framers in the next budget on February 1 to influence the mood of the distressed farming community, it has very positive implications for bringing about a significant change in the livelihood of the people below the poverty line.

Those comparing the People’s Republic of China’s economic slowdown in 2018 with India’s projected higher economic growth in the current financial year and beyond and suggesting that the country’s GDP will catch up with China in another 15 years or so are living in a fool’s paradise of false prosperity. China’s economy, which reportedly grew by 6.6 per cent in 2018, is worth $14 trillion. The size of India’s economy is worth only $2.6 trillion, or less than a fifth of China’s. The GDP of the United States of America, the world’s largest economy, at the end of 2018 was around $ 20.66 trillion. The US reported an economic growth of only about 3.5 per cent, less than 50 per cent of India’s seven-percent-plus. The economic base of both the US and China is too vast compared with that of India. The annual growth rate of the massively large economies of the US and China, the second largest, is bound to slow down as their overall sizes grow bigger and bigger. Compared to the sizes of these two economies, India’s economy, so-called the world’s sixth largest, is still very small in terms of its population. Even at eight percent GDP growth per annum, Indian economy is not going to get any closer to China’s in any foreseeable future. India’s economy may have outgrown China’s in 2018, but it is nowhere near China in technological strength and competence.

Gold is re-emerging as a safe haven, leading to record price levels amid the turmoil in other asset classes.

Can the police raid the office of a political party if they receive information that accused named in a criminal investigation are holed up in the party office? What if the political party happens to be the ruling party and the Chief Minister is also Home Minister or ‘Police’ Minister? Should the police officer then take permission from the Chief Minister/Home Minister? What if she does not do that knowing that every minute lost is every minute gained for the criminals to escape?

The Venezuelan people are facing a grave and dangerous situation, as the US dramatically escalates its campaign to oust Venezuela’s democratically elected government. Donald Trump’s decision on January 23 to recognise the unelected right-wing opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s “interim president” is confirmation that a co-ordinated operation led by the US to bring about regime change, which is illegal under international law, is under way.