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LUCKNOW: It is do or die battle for BJP and the opposition in the two by-elections for Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats.

India’s stagnant economy will be entering fiscal 2019 on the back of relatively poorer performance for two successive years (FY16-18), and well below 7 per cent growth in real terms in fiscal 18, amid global headwinds of market volatility, rising inflation and interest rate hikes charted by US Fed. Can we smartly overcome all these to let growth shine at 7.5 percent in the new fiscal year and rightly claim the tag of fastest-growing economy, not gloating over a single quarter growth recovery?

Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi go in for an early Lok Sabha poll? There have been growing speculation in political circles that he may dissolve the Lok Sabha in November or December and prefer to hold the general elections along with Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

PC’s son Karti is right. He should have remained in his London digs. Not spend time in a CBI cell. Now, he has given the BJP an electoral strategy. Agreed, the alternative would have given Shah-Modi much the same. It’s a throw, however, whether electoral strategies are working for the BJP. Witness the MP bypoll results.

Former Bihar chief minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha chief Jitan Ram Manjhi has quit the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). With this he has also announced the decision to join the ‘Mahagathbandhan’, the Grand Alliance. The development might not have any adverse numerical impact on the state NDA government headed by Nitish Kumar, but his joining hands with the mahagathbandhan will severely inflict damage to the BJP, particularly to the moral authority of Nitish.

Close on the visit of Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan for the Republic Day celebrations, the visit of Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang to India in March should be viewed from more than the angle of bilateral economic engagement. It has to be seen from the perspective of the two countries’ outreach for a strategic role in South China Sea and countering China’s aggressiveness in South East Asia. The back to back visit following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Vietnam in September 2016 will mark a milestone for strong ties between the two countries, particularly when China is flexing its political and military clout to claim sovereignty in South China Sea, after losing the battle of arbitration in the UN. Incidentally, both Vietnam and India are the victims of Chinese aggression. The partnership is of paramount importance for India’s role in South East Asia under the umbrella of Modi’s Act Asia policy.

Farmers do not like the Bharatiya Janata Party. One of the quirks of democracy is that the government of the day is always under attack. More so, during elections, and the opposition are those who do the attacking. Farmers are a big part of the broad phalanx of opposition. And the BJP’s attempts to reach out to farmers are boomeranging on it.

In a decade or two, nearly 50 per cent of 1.3 billion people in India will live in urban areas and transportation is perhaps going to be a major hurdle, particularly in major cities, which are already choked. Lately there is a new dimension to this problem, that is, pollution to which vehicles are a major contributor. It is medically proven that Indian children have 30 per cent less stamina because of pollution, especially in cities like Delhi, where air pollution is far beyond safe limits during winter.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Factionalism in the State CPI(M) has become a thing of the past. And the party would benefit from it. Thus thundered CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan at the recently-concluded party’s state conference.

Manoj Baitha, the BJP leader who killed nine children with his SUV, is a scumbag and that is his “good quality”. He doesn’t have the qualities of real good people. Like not getting drunk and driving. This lowlife had liquor in his blood and breath. And we are told liquor is banned in Nitish Kumar’s Bihar. Apparently, that is not true – bad spirits and Baitha conspired to avenge the imposition of the ban.