View Articles

The year 2015 may have been the most challenging year ever for crisis managers across the world trying to tackle terror attacks and disasters – natural as well as man-made – killing lakhs of people and displacing millions out of their homes. The cases of natural calamities such as typhoon, earthquake, flood, landslide, forest fire, heat wave and drought shook the administration in Nepal, Chennai, Maharashtra and West Bengal in India, Victoria in Australia, Sumatra in Indonesia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, north western and central-eastern China, England, Wales and Scotland in the UK, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Missouri in the US, Malawi and Mozambique in Africa, Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil in South America killed nearly 1,00,000 people, a large number of them being in Nepal earthquake alone, destroying thousands of houses and displacing millions out of their homes in search of new shelters. The end of the year came with miserable floods in Chennai, England, Wales, Paraguay, tornado in Texas, forest fire in Victoria and landslide and coal mine cave-ins around central-eastern China. Never before has the world seen such a massive year-end natural disasters and hostile weather.

The rural sports ‘Jallikattu’ popular in Tamil Nadu is in the news again this time more for political reasons. The flood ravaged state, even as it is battling to get back to normal is now fighting for resumption of Jallikattu, an Indian version of Spanish bullfight. With the Assembly elections round the corner, it is only natural that the Tamil Nadu political parties are eying vote banks.

For knowing how the next year will go, it may be instructive to look at the latest budget of Saudi Arabia. The country has just placed its budget for next year and it is showing a gaping hole in the government finances. It has a budget deficit of $100 billion. It is drastically cutting down subsidies on fuel, electricity and water. It is imposing VAT, including on tobacco. That is, Saudi Arabia is showing the strains from falling oil prices and fearing it to remain that way. That’s the pointer.

India’s path to smooth growth lays in the unstinted benefit it commands in terms of being the youngest nation in the globe with more than 54 per cent of the aggregate population below 25 years of age. No wonder, a savvy Prime Minister Narendra Modi sets store by “Skilling India” and “Start-Up” India endeavors to boost the morale and realize the magnitude of the untapped potentials for productive purposes. But the ground reality remains far removed if the figures available are anything to go by.

RJD supremo Lalu Yadav’s elder son and Bihar Health Minister, Tej Pratap Yadav was quite assertive, “this was the time to work for development of Bihar and not for identifying the PM material. These are two different things. Our main focus is development of Bihar”. The reason for his outburst was projection of the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar as the public face of the Mahagathbandhan at the national level and also pitch him as the alternative to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

BHOPAL: The year 2015 was a mixed bag for the ruling BJP and the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh. Barring the last two months, in 2015, luck favoured the ruling party. Beginning with the third consecutive victory in the Assembly polls in 2013, followed by the scintillating performance in the Lok Sabha 2014 polls, in which the party won 27 Lok Sabha seats out of 29, everything was hunky-dory for the BJP when 2015 dawned.

Russia, which is a time-tested friend of India, has cemented it further by deciding to open up its oil and gas sector to Indian companies. Russia has World's largest gas reserves and second largest reserves in oil in its northern and eastern parts stretching up to Japan. Oil and Gas exports are 70 per cent of Russia's $550 billion annual exports.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Is the Kerala CPI(M) bent upon scoring a self-goal? Is the party consumed by a death wish? These are the questions agitating the minds of not only the party cadres but also those of other Left Democratic Front(LDFO) constituents.

CHANDIGARH: Has the BJP-led NDA-II become the Congress-led UPA-II within 19 months of coming to power? Perhaps yes, with some degree of variations. The question relates to the performance of the two governments on crucial issues including corruption, economy, reforms, and Parliament’s functioning.

It would be a fallacy to write off China, Asia’s mighty economy, as no longer the prime mover of global growth nor its potential to shake the world economy out of its wits, and send it on a downspin. This must inform our policy-makers who gloat about India having upstaged China as the “fastest” growing economy. A percentage of one or two points above China’s growth may make us seem the fastest growing but have we the power to maintain and translate higher rates of growth into meaningful gains for the common man?