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As fiscal 2015 nears the mid-year, hope revives stronger for at least 5.5 per cent growth, despite a wayward monsoon, and should it materialize, the Modi Government could well trumpet that it had overcome the UPA baggage of “economic mess” and below 5 per cent growth over the last two years.

BHOPAL: Supporters of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan heaved a sigh of relief when Nand Kumar Chauhan was appointed President of the Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party. The search for the new chief of the state party began after Narendra Singh Tomar was inducted into the Union Ministry. Tomar was president of the State BJP during the last two general elections to the State Vidhan Sabha. He had excellent rapport with Shivraj Singh Chauhan.

India’s search for quality power seems destined to be stunted. The power ministry and public sector units are all gaga about thermal power capacity addition year-on-year to the current figure of 53,000 MW. Of this, NTPC’s contribution to capacity is 44,128 MW including the latest dedication of Mouda Super Thermal power project Stage I for 1,000 MW capacity.

KOLKATA: Assam is on the boil now following a fast-developing sequence of events. Armed Nagas raided and burnt several villages, killing two, on Assam-Nagaland border near Urimghat in the Golaghat district of Assam. This was on August 12. Angry villagers stoned the motorcade of Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, when he tried to visit the area on August 18. He was unhurt but the police lathi-charged and fired rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Was the gas leak at the public sector unit, Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd (KMML), sometime back, in which 130 school children had to be hospitalized, an accident or was it a well-planned effort to ensure the permanent closure of yet another PSU unit in the State?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has junked the Planning Commission. His announcement on the Independence Day scrapping it was not a bombshell as speculations to that effect were doing rounds in the corridors of power. What was not expected was his invitation to the public to come up with suggestions for an alternate body. One would have expected the government to give a thought about the alternate body before announcing its liquidation. Now until the new reformed commission is formed, there will be a vacuum.

LUCKNOW: BJP national president Amit Shah faces biggest challenge to retain all the 12 assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat going for by-elections in Uttar Pradesh on September 13 this year.

In the wake of the infamous Mumbai (then Bombay) blasts in 1993, then Chief Minister of Maharashtra Sharad Pawar issued a statement which was deliberately false. In his press release, what Mr. Pawar did was to falsely include a ‘Muslim-dense’ area of Bombay as victim of the atrocity in order to paint a picture of indiscriminate targeting by the attackers. The city, like the rest of the nation, was still reeling from the aftermaths of Babri-mosque demolition and hence the ‘white-lie’ on part of Mr. Pawar was mostly acclaimed as necessary, if not indispensible, to avoid another devastating communal riot in a city where divisive politics had already spread its tentacles far and wide.

With a comfortable majority in the lower house of Parliament and being confident of improving the tally in the upper house before long, the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi has embarked upon decentralization of power from the Centre to the States in a significant bid to promote true federalism. Although several governments in the past had mouthed the need to devolve power from the Centre to the States and from States to panchayati raj and urban local bodies, the reality was far different. One has always been led to take this with a shovel of salt so much so that the Centre developed a sort of vested interest in centralized control under the pretext of ironing out inequalities among people and among States over the years!

With the government and the Reserve Bank gearing up to enact a new bankruptcy law in India, certain sectors of industry and sections of entrepreneurs may have genuine reasons to cheer. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about ordinary corporate investors, creditors and bank depositors unless the government guarantees a strong deposit or investment insurance regime to protect them. For ordinary investors, the fear of probability of the law providing protection to a bankrupt business, bank or financial institution and individual has become more acute than ever in the light of the recent collapse of even several large corporations such as Kingfisher Airlines, Ispat Industries, etc. alongside some non-banking financial companies and chit funds and real estate firms putting creditors and investors in deep distress.