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As we enter 2016, with Modi Government's third budget due in ten weeks, the domestic economy was still struggling out of a quagmire while continuing global slowdown and newer financial risks loomed large. India's growth, with less cushion abroad, could thus remain subdued within 8 per cent in fiscal 2017.

Trust is the key. Japanese Prime Shinzo Abe seems to have finally recognized that India could be fully trusted with technology transfer and large fund investments. It may have taken almost a quarter of a century since Osamo Suzuki chose India for small car production in equity collaboration with the government-owned Maruti Udyog for Japan to finally trust India to engage itself with the country for civil nuclear cooperation. But, Japan today is convinced that slow-and-steady-moving democratic India is probably the most trusted country for economic and technology cooperation outside the USA. The huge $12-billion Japanese long term soft credit commitment for a single project in India – the 550 km Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train service – along with proposal of technology transfer in defence production among 14 other economic cooperation pacts symbolize growing Japanese trust for India as a reliable partner in progress. It is unlikely that Japan's current China perspective alone is behind the latest level of Japanese economic cooperation with India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is committed to take India within top 50 in the World Bank‘s Ease of Doing Business in three years from the current rank of 130 out of 189 countries. Morgan Stanley Vice – Chairman Tom Nides reposed confidence in Modi’s leadership in fast-forwarding the economy. Arguing on Make in India, he said that Mr Modi was not for short term decision for instant gratification. Over the decades, Indian bureaucracy became the main tool to formulate the economic policies, no matter whether they were economists, scientists or statisticians or not.

Kashmir always remains the core issue whenever India-Pakistan dialogue is resumed or breaks down. This time also, in the breakthrough in Islamabad with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit and the decision to resume of a comprehensive bilateral dialogue, Kashmir remained the key issue. The Manmohan Singh Government had tried to kick-start stalled discussion through “the resumed dialogue” process, which met with the same fate of the composite dialogue following the killing of Indian soldiers almost three years ago. In the past, every time there was forward momentum in India-Pakistan ties, particularly on Kashmir, there were attempts by militants or the army to derail the process.

BHOPAL: Negligence and indifference by the concerned officials and failure to enforce relevant rules and procedure caused another tragedy in Madhya Pradesh. A few days ago about 80 persons lost their lives following a massive blast caused due to careless storage of explosive material. Explosion took place in Petlavad, which was part of Jhabua-Ratlam parliamentary constituency, was lost by the BJP. Petlavad explosion was one of the causes, which led to BJP's defeat in the by-election.

There is one common element in the peoples’ mandates of Bihar and Gujarat. In Bihar elections were for the assembly while in Gujarat it was electing the peoples’ representatives for the local bodies and municipalities. The common element in both the elections was the rural people decisively rejected Narendra Modi and his government. After its battering in Bihar, BJP's loss in rural local bodies in Gujarat comes a year after Narendra Modi, who ruled the state for 12 years, shifted to Delhi.

In a move to part reduce cross subsidization of passenger services from freight earnings, the Ministry of Railways has decided to charge full adult fare for children of 5-12 years in reserved seats or berths from April, 2016. At present, children of 5-12 years are charged half of the adult tickets and children below 5 years travel free of costs, across all classes, reserved and unreserved. However, children of 5-12 years will continue to travel in unreserved seats/berths, as at present, at half the adult tickets. Children below 5 years will continue to travel free without claim to seats/berths in all reserved or unreserved classes. According to official sources, date of enforcing this decision and detailed modalities will be notified later.

One would expect a late Indira Gandhi’s daughter in law to show greater respect to her mother in law by respecting the democratic system and to judicial summons instead of loudly protesting against them in Parliament to stop its normal function. The massive land grab charges against the president and the vice-president of the party pending before the court need to be fought there legally and not in Parliament. Indira Gandhi fought her election perjury case in the Allahabad high court, which she lost in the end, instead of trying to stall Parliament proceedings using her party representatives. The Delhi high court has found substance in the massive land grab allegation against the Congress president, her son and associates. They were directed to appear before the trial court. Like good citizens, they should have immediately responded to the direction by the upper court and submitted their version before the trial court instead of disrupting Parliament and invoking the name of the late prime minister.

After a cordial meeting between the Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week, it was expected that the Winter Session of Parliament might run smoothly and the reform bills might go through. Modi began with a conciliatory note not only in his speeches in Parliament but also made a rare gesture of inviting the Congress President Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for tea to break the ice. The Congress too climbed down and showed signs of supporting the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill, which the Modi government desperately wants to push through this session. A week later, the Congress leaders are now talking of a “touch and go” scenario even though the government has responded positively to the Congress demands.

Performance of government, its outreach and initiatives matters but what is most important is the peoples’ perception of the government. It was perception of the Nitish led Mahagathbandhan, of being peoples’ friendly and concerned of their aspirations that people voted it to power. But ironically after assuming power the grand alliance government has not made a serious move to consolidate it and make it the USP of the government.