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Union Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley’s open invitation to Russian firms, last week, to set up joint ventures with Indian companies to manufacture advanced military platforms through technology transfers couldn’t have at a more appropriate time as India gears up to overhaul its decades-old slow-moving defence production programme. India is the world’s largest defence and security gears importer. The gross annual armament and parts import bill, covering all the three services, para-military forces and other connected agencies, is close to US$10 billion. The BJP-led government’s path-breaking initiatives for defence production in India have been received enthusiastically by the country’s leading private industrial groups such as the Tatas, Reliance, Mahindra & Mahindra and Larsen & Toubro. Defence manufacturers from both sides of the North Atlantic has made positive responses to the government’s ‘make in India’ initiative.

BHOPAL: There is no end to the woes of Madhya Pradesh farmers. The state government decided to purchase onions at the rate of Rs 8 per kg, after over-production brought the price of the produce crashing down to unheard-of levels and following an aggressive and violent protest by the farmers.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It is an unredeeming tale of man’s inhumanity to man; of unspeakable brutality of bureaucrats who batten themselves on human misery.

The upcoming visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to USA has drawn several speculations and apprehensions, given President Donald Trump’s challenge for a vertical change in the long-held pillars of US foreign policy. Trump’s overture for overturning USA’s role in global diplomacy, shifting to inward diplomacy, castigating globalization the Davos way and sputter America First to rebuilt USA by Americans are some of the new threats of Trump administration. Against this backdrop, Modi’s visit – advanced by several months (earlier expected at the end of the year) - pitched for hard challenges to Modi to give a new shape to India-US relation, built during the three years of Obama administration.

The BJP’s Ram Nath Kovind is all set to be the country’s second Dalit President, first being K R Narayanan. He was born and brought up in Uttar Pradesh. His big qualification in the current Presidential election is that he is a Dalit. Till now the Rashtrapati Bhavan’s third occupant, Zakir Hussain, was the only one with direct association with key state. But he wasn’t born in Uttar Pradesh. His family migrated to Farukkhabad from Hyderabad, his place of birth was in what is now Telangana.

With the UPA nomination of Ms Meira Kumar as its combined candidate for the July 17. 2017 elections of the next President of India to succeed the incumbent President Pranab Mukherjee, a clear battle line has been drawn between her and the ruling NDA Government nominee Ram Nath Kovind. Both belong to the Dalit community, hailing from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh respectively. While the electoral college is advantageous to the NDA candidate, the fight is more than symbolic.

Senate Republicans have released their secret plan to kick millions off of health insurance and transfer hundreds of millions of dollars that now go to healthcare for working people and the poor into the pockets of the rich.

Behind the tragedy, calamity and babble over farmers’ death, loan waivers, crashing prices is the reality of a vital sector of the economy which is held to ransom by control mind set of politicians. How and why? Here are the reasons.

The famous first freedom speech was made by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on the midnight of August 15, 1947. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is all set to deliver the so-called second freedom speech on the midnight of June 30, 2017; or at least that must be the idea behind the chosen venue, Parliament House, and timing for the GST roll-out.

Messages aimed at causing estrangement among two main communities are flying around in abundance on the social media networks. Most of them are being spread by Hindutva enthusiasts holding the Islam and not the followers, responsible for rape and plunder of India for a thousand year. They are expressing their determination to fight back, but they are perhaps unaware of the base that provided India strength to enable the Indian culture to survive vagaries of time and several invasions.