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In a swift move the BJP has reached out to its asserting allies with the party President Amit Shah assuring them that the party was keen to follow the coalition dharma. This damage control exercise this week ahead of the crucial budget session of Parliament had somewhat mollified the allies who were irked with the BJP’s what they call arrogant behaviour.

Central bankers in the developed world are entering into a surrealistic world. Ever since unconventional monetary policies were launched in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, the central banks are wading into areas further and further from reality. They had introduced low interest rate regimes to encourage economic activity. When that did not work, they started quantitative easing or simply pushing more and more money into financial systems.

Uncharacteristically and after sturdy signals that it would not bolster environmental issues standing in the way of scoring higher economic growth and high yield productivity in agriculture, the Modi Sarkar sent a message, loud and clear, by deferring a decision on permitting commercial cultivation of a genetically modified organism (GMO) mustard hybrid.

Mandatory 20 per cent procurement by public enterprises from Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises came into being on April 1, 2015 and but it seems to be not working so far as most of the PSUs have faltered on this provision putting into hardship several MSMEs, which account for nearly 40 per cent of manufacturing in the country.

BHOPAL: Right wing Hindus are determined to repeat Babri Masjid in Dhar town of Madhya Pradesh where Bhojshala is located. While Hindus describe this historical structure as Bhojshala, Muslims claim that it is Kamal Moula Mosque. For years now Dhar witnesses tense situation on every Tuesday and Friday. On Tuesdays Hindus reach Bhojshala to perform puja and on Fridays Muslims offer Namaz. Hindus claim that Bhojshala is a sort of temple where Saraswati idol was kept.

CHANDIGARH: Will Bihar results be repeated in Punjab in the 2017 state assembly elections? Experienced political pundits would avoid giving an answer to the question. Assembly elections are less than a year away and a week can be a long time in politics to upset predictions.

If the country’s military forces are 70 per cent import dependent on critical armament supplies, it must follow a realistic approach to get hi-tech foreign defence hardware suppliers to make in India. The dream of India, the world’s largest defence importer, to emerge as a major arms producer may take much longer to turn true under its current defence FDI policy no matter what assurances it may receive from global defence technology giants and suppliers. Normally, foreign high-end weapons manufacturers would like at least a controlling stake in co-production ventures in India. Until now, India, has done little to establish itself as a major manufacturer-exporter of military arsenal. In the $400-billion-plus global legal defence export trade in 2014-15, India’s share was just around $100 million, supplying mostly low technology items and parts to some 22 countries. In contrast, China’s weapons export in 2014-15 was worth $20 billion. Along with established players Germany and France, China became the world’s third largest war equipment exporter – all having an equal market share of five per cent each. For inexplicable reasons, India had mostly preferred import to local production of sophisticated weapons. The Indian military has remained high on its combatants’ strength and low on lethal power.

Nitish Kumar’s success in the Bihar elections appears to have persuaded him to spread his wings. Hence his decision to take the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) route to power in UP after it proved to be the right political recipe for Bihar.

The specter of Partition continues to loom large in the politics of the subcontinent. How one imagines the Partition and how it came about is also intricately tied with how one imagines one self – this being particularly true for those born late enough to have no direct access to any first-hand pre-Partition lived experience and consciousness. Present residents of certain urban centres of the subcontinent would probably find it hard to imagine a contemporary Karachi as a Hindu Sindhi dominated city or a Dhaka as a Hindu Bengali dominated metropolis or a Delhi whose dominant public urban culture is Islamicate in a Persian influenced manner or a Kolkata whose Muslim Bengali population rivals and even surpasses its Muslim non-Bengali population in power, prestige, cultural and economic influence. Karachi, Delhi, Kolkata, Dhaka – as they are today are all cities shaped or mis-shaped by Partition.

Why is Mehbooba Mufti delaying formation of the government with BJP? If she forms government along with the BJP, she may lose her vote bank in the valley. The late Mufti Mohamed Sayeed could manage a coalition with the BJP because of the weight of his personality. This is not so with his daughter. Inability of Mehbooba to form the government would mean a mid-term poll which she wants to avoid. It would be a tough call for her to agree to elections at a time when she knows the party is losing its foothold in PDP held constituencies due to its alliance with the saffron party.