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The Rs 3546 crore Agusta-Westland contract, signed in 2010 to purchase 12 Anglo-Italian AW101 helicopters for the Indian Air Force to carry VIPs like the President and the Prime Minister, has revived the ghost of the 21 British Westland helicopters purchased by late Rajiv Gandhi’s government in 1985 for PSU carrier Pawan Hans. Like the Agusta-Westland deal allegedly involving the Italians and the Indian bigwigs including Sonia Gandhi, the earlier Westland deal involved the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Rajiv Gandhi.

Yet another Parliament session seems to be moving towards a washout because of the confrontation between the ruling party and the Congress led opposition. With both sides armed with ammunition to attack each other, there is no meeting point. Nor has the government made any efforts to woo the opposition.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It does not pay to be too clever in politics. The wily Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, for once, seems to have realized this in his attempt to score a brownie point against leader of the Opposition, V. S. Achuthanandan.

In the face of current world economic crisis, poised by bubble burst in China and the financial crisis in European Union and further to be triggered by Britain exit from EU ( highly speculated), regional integrations have become important for developing nations . Inter-regional trade in the trade blocks, which warrant for duty free or concessional duty preferences, has become pertinent for the buoyancy in trade and investment. Under the present environment, no developing country can stand alone for its growth in trade and investment.

English Daily National Herald (now defunct) established in Lucknow on 9 September 1938 by Jawaharlal Nehru, who was also the paper’s first editor carried the words ‘FREEDOM IS IN PERIL, DEFEND IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT’ on its masthead. The happenings during the Modi government’s two years of rule the word “Freedom” needs to be substituted with “Democracy”!

Theoretically, the Group of Twenty (G20) meeting on 4–5 September 2016 in Hangzhou would focus on global governance; role in the global economy and gaining leverage through strategic partnerships but in reality it would be used as a forum by the USA and Obama administration to accomplish its unfinished agenda of Australian G20 summit of 2014 of bullying China and Russia.

It is easy to imagine how the BJP would have reacted if a confrontation between students from the mainland and the locals in Srinagar’s National Institute of Technology (NIT) had taken place when the Congress and the National Conference were in power in the state.

The BJP-led NDA government at the centre seems to be turning desperate to dismantle the state control over corporations and institutions. With the powerful political combine nearing the mid-term of its five-year tenure before the next Parliamentary election becomes due in 2019, the government seems to be getting impatient with the age old economic system that championed the cause of public sector enterprises (PSEs), encouraged the take-over of companies left sick by their private owners and those family-managed and financially exploited private banks and insurance outfits to help faster capital formation, industrialization, workers’ protection and better collection, utilization and distribution of public savings for economic growth.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There is no mistaking it. The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) seems to be succeeding in keeping the focus away from its acts of omission and commission, corruption and scams plaguing its five-year rule.

While a media hype is being created about Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar possessing the prime ministerial element and is the only politician who can replace the present Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the abnormal spurt in crime which saw the killing of police officers and even political activists of the ruling RJD, has raised fresh question marks on the claim of providing Sushashan, good governance and about the law and order situation in the state.