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The Ministry of Railways has delayed inordinately implementation of reports of various expert committees on rail reforms that have submitted their reports in the recent past. Such delays defeat the very purpose of constitution of such committees. Some prominent expert committees are Kakodkar Committee, Sam Pitroda Committee, Mittal Committee, Sreedharan Committee and Bibek Debary Committee. These Committees have submitted their reports during the period from 2012 to 2015. According to official sources, recommendations of these committees are still under examination and awaiting implementation.

Last week, in Mumbai's Malwani area, two teachers of a children's tutorial class allegedly forced two children of Class 2 and 3 to strip and stand naked outside class. The two children had not completed their homework and that was the “reason” for this perverted act. The fact that we have adults in our midst who think that they have the power to forcibly get children to strip reveals the naked power that is used on the vulnerable.

Home-buyers in the country can at long last heave a welcome sigh of relief with Parliament recently passing the much-awaited Real Estate Bill, known in legalese as the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, 2015 with both the Upper and Lower Houses clearing it within a week. In the course of five years it was on the anvil, the Bill underwent multiple rounds of parleys with copious alterations incorporated into its original text in different contexts. The Bill is aimed at instituting a regulatory structure so as to regain confidence in a sector that is riddled with opacity and unregulated players holding desperate house-buyers on the tenterhooks.

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha saw a miracle. It is for the first time, after almost a decade, that the House discussed and passed the demands of all the departments of the state government. In almost all earlier sessions of the State Vidhan Sabha, question hours were suspended due to disruptions caused by the opposition.

Uttarakhand is probably moving towards President’s rule but before that the defection drama of “Aya Rams and Gaya Rams” will be fully enacted. The Assembly may be kept under animated suspension. The crisis comes closely on the heels of the recent Arunachal Pradesh crisis where a similar drama was enacted by the BJP and the rebel Congress legislators. The Congress, which had 47 MLAs in the 60-member Arunachal assembly, suffered a jolt when 21 of them revolted and 11 BJP MLAs backed the rebels in the bid to upstage the Nabam Tuki government.

More than taking the world fraternity by surprise or stunning them, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of March 14 that “the main part” of the Russian military presence in Syria would be pulled out has made them scared and nervous.

“Some people make headlines while others make history”. The outgoing week’s two developments prove Fortune’s senior editor right in Punjab and Haryana leaders case. Their actions on two important issues have made headlines though it is doubtful if these would make history. One development was the Satluj Yamuna Link canal dispute between Punjab and Haryana and the other was the controversy over Bharat Mata ki jai slogan.

If some medicines are found ‘harmful’ or even useless to consumers, the government or the apex drug regulator is within its right to ban them. Logically, such drugs should be banned before they hit the market and their samples make round of doctors’ chambers. In fact, drugs can’t be sold in the market for public consumption without prior regulatory approval. Therefore, it is difficult to understand the government’s sudden ban of 344 drugs, last week, sending industry and trade in a tizzy and consumers of these medicines totally shocked and confused. Most of these medicines have been in the market for years, if not for decades, and are regularly prescribed by doctors. What did the government do all this time? The drug industry and trade are understandably up against the government order. They say the ban could cost them close to Rs. 4,000 crore. No one knows what it has already cost helpless consumers, who may be holding stocks of many of these drugs purchased from chemists over-the-counter or under prescriptions from medical practitioners.

Now that the Congress has lined up behind the BJP and the Shiv Sena to oust a Maharashtra legislator from the state assembly for refusing to say, Bharat Mata ki Jai, the party may well consider pressing the Narendra Modi government to speed up the construction of the Ram temple in order to further advance the saffron agenda.

Three major military pacts presumably aimed at rejuvenating and elevating Indo-U.S. relations to a new strategic level are being pushed afresh under the Narendra Modi regime after being shelved by the UPA government. The US defence secretary Ashton Carter is on the high octave mission to India to give a realistic shape to the pact. The way the system has been moving to accomplish the task it makes it explicit that the Modi government is more concerned of the USA interest than caring for the Indian constraints. Else there was no reason that the government would have agreed to the USA prodding to sign at the dotted lines when Ashton lands in India in April with the document.