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Globalisation was at cross roads at the turn of the century due to East Asian currency meltdown and the failure of Seattle WTO ministerial in 1999. There was an UNCTAD meeting in Bangkok in the early part of 2000 to put globalization back on track. At the concluding news conference of the UNCTAD meeting, a reporter observed that as per Hindu philosophy, only thing that is certain in this universe is death and has it become a certainty for globalization.

Marshal Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. Two of the American Wild West’s real-life heroes. Wyatt tamed Dodge City and Deadwood and went on to Tombstone to clear it off the riffraff and the Cowboy Gang. The Gunfight at the Okay Corral set the tone for the Cattlemen’s War and marked Earp’s as the toughest law enforcer of the time. Wyatt met Doc Holliday in Tombstone and there developed a special bond between them. But death rode on Doc’s shoulder and death ate into his lungs. Doc was too quick on the draw to be killed by the bullet. That was left to ‘Consumption’ or what we know as TB, today. TB killed ‘Doc’ as sure as it did 4,32,000 Indians in 2016 alone.

LUCKNOW: The upbeat mood of SP and BSP leaders and workers after the victory in Gorakhpur and Phulpur by-elections is contrasted by a sharp dip in the morale of BJP ministers and leaders. So much so that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has cancelled his engagements for two days. His ministers also avoided attending public functions to spare themselves of embarrassment.

Vladimir Putin’s re-election as the President of Russia, encompassing his decree over the world’s largest country for another six years, that too at a time when his ties with not only the Western world but also with other parts of the globe, including France and EU, are on a hostile trajectory, has certainly not come as a surprise.

Whoever thought that Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is touted as a strong leader leading an expanding BJP will face a no confidence motion after four years? When Modi rode into South Block in 2014, the BJP believed that the party and its leaders are invincible and is now enthused by the successive poll results, which enabled the BJP led NDA ruling in 21 states. So the first no confidence motion brought against the Modi government by the two regional parties TDP and YSR Congress from Andhra Pradesh this week has come as a rude shock to the BJP managers.

The loss of two Lok Sabha seats by the Bharatiya Janata Party in bye-elections from Uttar Pradesh is not a flash in a pan. The party has lost six seats out of ten it had won in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections while it was not able to wrest even a single out of 13 others for which bye-polls were held since 2014. The decline is steadily as it has not been able to wrest even a single from other parties. Even in state elections it was not able to make a dent in states under the regional parties. The outcomes pose a serious question as to what constituted political mind of the Indian voter in 2014 to give a clear mandate to Narendra Modi who had relegated his party to background and sought the vote for himself. His election campaign and publicity material had left no one in dark that he was seeking mandate to form his rule. His posters had loudly pronounced ‘this time, Modi government (Ab Ki Bar, Modi Sarkar). When a section pointed out this aberration, posters were replaced for a week to bring back the posters that had sought vote for formation of his government.

BHOPAL: Extraordinary increase in crimes against women in Madhya Pradesh has forced the police to resort to extra-legal measures to ‘terrorise’ the criminals. According to data available on the police website, 85 rape cases were reported from November 2017 to February 2018 in Bhopal alone. Every single day a female is sexually harassed and abducted, while every second day she is being raped in the state capital, as per the interpretation of the data.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Damned if it forges an alliance. Damned if it does not. That is the dilemma the Kerala Congress(Mani), which is currently ploughing a lonely furrow in Kerala politics, finds itself in.

'Apology' is not like saying ‘sorry’, which is just another word Indians all over keep uttering, most times not even meaning it, sincerity not in tone nor in intent. ‘Sorry’ is generally looked down upon and cast aside disparagingly with these words, “Angrez Chala Gaya Par Sorry Chod Gaya.” So, when Aam Aadmi Party convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal ‘tenders an apology’ to former Akali Dal minister Bikram Singh Majithia, it is an insult to AAP’s Punjab unit. 'Apology' carries some weight, it's serious.

Okay, now we know who the next Prime Minister of India will be: A 47-year-old who has an aged grandma in Italy and tonnes of fans in Singapore, a man so steeped in Hindu mythology, he knows the Mahabharata from the Kaurava to the Pandava, and he can tell which Gujarati surname spells corruption and which fathered the nation.