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In a voice choked with (feigned?) emotion, Narendra Modi told the Ambedkar University convocation last Friday that Rohith Vemula was forced to take his own life. But he did not specify who forced the Dalit student although the prime minister knew that the “culprits” were in his cabinet. Moreover, they are likely to continue in their posts despite their guilt – unless they are booked for the abetment of suicide.

Even fistful of salt can make a vast difference to the political fortunes of competing parties in the electoral arena. The deprival of the fistful of salt to poor families that they used to get from a bania shop for five paisa only two decades earlier is a symbolic inability of politicians to perceive mismatch between their policies and needs of vast masses of India. Several such examples can easily be ferreted out of the system of governance and plethora of restrictive laws and regulations imposed in the last six decades. Yet it would be impossible to drive the understanding down the heads of most politicians who seem to be concerned with the elite who do not participate in voting and yet all schemes and social welfare schemes deliver benefits to them and the poor remain deprived of even basic amenities though they enthusiastically participate in governance through their votes.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has constituted a committee with Shyam Benegal as Chairperson to help evolve broad guidelines/procedure within the ambit of the Cinematograph Act 1952 and Cinematograph (Certification) Rules 1983. Readers ought to be reminded that in February 2013 the Government of India had appointed another committee with Justice Mukul Mudgal as Chairperson to hold a full review of Indian Cinematograph Act 1952. The Mudgal Committee had appended in its Report of September 2013 a draft Cinematograph Act to replace the 1952 Act; but it also recommended that the central government should issue suitable directions guiding the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) regarding sanctioning of films for public exhibition.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The efforts of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP) to forge a third front in Kerala have suffered a slew of setbacks.

NEW DELHI: Is India’s national carrier Air India heading towards a slow but certain death after more than six decades of unhindered service? If so, the Government is itself to blame.

LUCKNOW: Congress Party is facing a difficult task to find out a credible face who should not only help in revival of the party in Uttar Pradesh but also ensure good number of seats in 2017 assembly polls for the party to play active role in government formation.

Why the rest of the world sneezes when China catches cold is no longer a conundrum as events in the first few weeks of 2016 conclusively demonstrated that are manifest in the multiple woes of the world economy in general and crude oil price plunge in particular. Even as coal accounts for about 70 per cent of aggregate Chinese energy consumption, Prof. Stephen Roach of the Yale University believes that the Middle Kingdom’s “role in driving world oil demand is also crucial”. He estimated that in the decade ending 2014, growth in Chinese consumption accounted for 48 per cent of the total growth in global oil demand”. As such, it is small wonder that Chinese reduced consumption of oil, after such a headlong and hectic high economic growth spread over three decades, explains much of the recent collapse in crude prices.

The 51-year-old BJP chief Amit Shah is all set to get a second term. The party’s parent organisation RSS also seems to have given the nod and the announcement is expected very soon as Amit Shah completes his present term on January 23. His new term ends in January 2019, the year of the next Lok Sabha polls.

BHOPAL: Series of communal incidents in Madhya Pradesh have become a major cause of concern both for the government and society. Communal elements are planning to disturb peace and harmony at Dhar town, where Bhojshala is located.

KOLKATA: As broad sections of opinion within the CPI(M) and the Congress talk about a possible alignment in West Bengal against the ruling Trinamool Congress, the pre-poll situation in the state gets more confusing, if not murkier.