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Global ratings agency Standard & Poors has expressed disappointment over the pace of reforming the Indian banking sector as part of the programme to address the system’s non-performing assets. The agency noted that although a few initiatives have been announced to reform the sector, very few steps have been taken so far and the follow-through action on the announced reforms has been weak.

Being the world’s largest rail network with 67,368 km of route length spread across the continental-sized country of ours, the Indian Railways (IRs) today is on the threshold of a challenging phase ahead, as it has taken multiple tasks on hand with no matching resources to execute them with tenacity of purpose and result-orientation. With its more than 150 years history and heritage of pre-colonial past, the baggage it suffers, operating as it is as a departmental commercial undertaking of the Government of India under the overall control of the Railway Board, its image as a national common carrier moving passenger and goods over its vast network has suffered a serious dent due to operational ineptitude and the willful wrong use of the system by successive railway ministers for narrow political purposes down the decades.

Indian elections are generally boisterous affairs with the atmosphere of a carnival. However, the chances are that the zing will be absent during the forthcoming state assembly elections and the general election next year.

There is a special kind of Hell for the cow vigilante. It is not a lake of boiling pitch. That is for corrupt politicians. In Dante's Hell, the cow vigilante is hung from meat-hooks. Roasted on slow fire. Cow Vigilante Fry! Malayali Happymon Jacob tweets that the best beef-fry is Kerala’s Beef-PepperFry. He lists Meghalaya. Mizoram. West Bengal and Sikkim among places where beef dishes are “Yummy”.

Weekly Round-Up of Major Decisions of the Courts in India as also Legal Policy Developments

On 21st July early morning, a cattle trader named Rakbar was lynched in Alwar for suspected cow smuggling, more than a year after dairy farmer Pehlu Khan was lynched in the same place. Since lynching has become the ‘new normal’ in ‘New India’, it caused the usual outrage in the media and among activists. A Union minister shockingly described the horrific crime as a ‘conspiracy’ to dent Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity. But as details of the incident emerged, police has been blamed for outrageously delaying hospitalisation of the victim, by first putting the two cows in a shelter, stopping for tea on the way, washing the victim so that he does not ‘dirty’ their jeep, and also assaulting him in the vehicle, while purportedly seeking to get him medical attention. When finally Rakbar reached the community health centre, he was declared ‘brought dead’. It was not just Rakbar who died on 21st July, 2018. It is the soul of India that died. It is our collective conscience that died. It is the integrity of the Indian police force that breathed its last that day.

Some Muslim scholars and intellectuals have been expressing concern at the backwardness of Muslim community and their lagging behind in education and employment. Their worry is not unjustified. They ought to raise their voice. But at the same time, instead of pointing fingers at others, they should urge the Muslim community to do some the introspection.

Now that the Narendra Modi government has won the trust vote on Friday, what next? The dramatic ‘hug’ and ‘wink’ of the Congress President Rahul Gandhi while speaking on the no-trust motion on Friday might have become news, but the real question is whether the Opposition is really ready to take on the BJP in 2019 and also who will lead the Opposition.

The socio-pathology of the nation stinks. Cow vigilante beat a man half-dead. People inform police. Cops assault the victim! At the spot. In the police station. Finally, taken to hospital, Rakbar Khan is declared “brought dead”. Who is to blame? The state government says not the murdering cops. In the Lok Sabha, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan declares: “This is not an issue to raise in the House.”

‘Miltablishment’ breathes down the neck of all parties – major and minor – save the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf with Imran Khan at the helm. The PTI is the only party which has not questioned the impartiality of the polls, scheduled to take place on 25 July to directly elect 278 law-makers of the National Assembly. The Election Commission of Pakistan behaves like a cretin as it condescended to the top honchos at the Rawalpindi Cantonment that clamped the mandate that the army head of each polling booth will have magisterial powers during the polling process. The Rawalpindi Cantonment is the seat of ‘Miltablishment’ thriving on the notorious feudal hangover. The majority of military big shots in the history of Pakistan come from West Punjab.