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The Congress veterans who had been apprehensive of their future under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership are heaving a sigh of relief that they will not become a vanishing tribe now that there are clear signals from Congress President Sonia Gandhi that she still depends on them.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government has followed up the good start it made by taking a few solid steps to eradicate corruption and keep the real estate mafia out of the education sector.

Embedded in India’s growth story in recent years were the elements of its export success, though the foreign trade front has of late been the Achilles heels of the Indian economy, hamstrung as it were, by tepid external demand. This is exacerbated by domestic constraints of considerable importance that range from raw material availability at international prices to poor infrastructure, both physical as also export, besides the exorbitant transaction cost to trade and industry.

Anniversary celebrations are occasions to take stock of a government’s performance. While ruling parties opponents always claim that “government has failed on all fronts”, those in power never tire of boastfully declaring having delivered their commitments. This was also claimed during Narendra Modi-led government’s second anniversary celebrations.

BHOPAL: After a long time, the Congress workers of Madhya Pradesh celebrated a big victory after the election of the party candidate Vivek Tankha in the Rajya Sabha biennial poll defeating all the efforts of the ruling BJP to capture the seat by resorting to malpractices. The veteran leader Kamal Nath led the Congress campaign and his success has given a new confidence to the Congress workers in the state which faces assembly elections in 2018.

Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has won the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the Presidential elections in November this year after a gruelling battle with the Socialist Bernie Sanders who has created history in the US politics by radicalizing the election agenda and converting this 2016 elections into a battle of issues instead of personalities. Hillary surpassed the majority figure of 2383 votes on June 7 night after the results of polling in primaries and caucuses to the six states, were declared and with President Obama endorsing her candidature, Hillary is now presumptive Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party who will take on Donald Trump at the November elections.

This time, Arun Jaitley hasn’t called the protests over the censoring of the film, “Udta Punjab”, as “manufactured dissent” as he did when sections of the intelligentsia were returning their awards over the government’s “intolerance” of dissent.

Union Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Minister Ram Vilas Paswan may not quite agree that his low profile and yet most publicly scrutinised department could do much better in the last two years to win over the stakeholders — consumers, traders and NGOs-- despite the delivery complexity in the areas it functions. A good number of decisions come under inter-ministerial initiatives, cooperation and agreements. And, that invariably opens opportunity to delay decisions. Bihar's Lok Janshakti Party supremo Paswan, an eight-term Lok Sabha member and a distinguished, hard-working telecommunications minister in the previous NDA government under Atal Behari Vajpayee, may be finding it rather tough to deal with inter-ministerial panels to meet the expectations of the public, the business and traders' communities and aggressive NGOs, especially those concerned with rights of consumers. Paswan is faced with a demand to legalise the direct selling business and set up even a regulator which he has not been able to act upon in the last two years.

In 2016, with another round of elections to the Rajya Sabha coming up in various state assemblies, the continued abuse of the idea of the Rajya Sabha by so-called “national” parties has come to the fore. A large number of Rajya Sabha members, past and present, have been representing states with which they really have no connection at all, thus undermining the very principle of representation that is supposed to be the bedrock of representative democracy.

In the past many leaders had left the party, abusing the leadership and formed their outfit. Most glaring example was of YB Chavan and many of his type who left the Congress and latter returned on bended knees. There was time when a powerful section of the party revolted against the then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao and formed Congress-Tewari (ND Tewari). As powerful leaders as Arjun Singh, ML Fotedar and Natwar Singh joined it. In the course of time the Congress-Tewari could not make a headway and all those who had formed it returned to the party fold.