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Controversy roared when Prime Minister Narendra Modi sneered at protectionism and sided with Chinese President Xi Jinping to advocate globalization in Davos. Nevertheless, China too towed protectionism in the early stage of development. Its strategy helped to push the country as the global hub for manufacturing behind the wall of protectionism and swamped the world with cheap goods. In contrast, Indian protectionism languished and manufacturing, despite giving protection to the domestic economy, accounts for merely 18 percent of GDP in India as against 40 per cent in China.

At a time when the country’s ailing banking industry, particularly the proverbial public sector banks (PSBs) suffering from balance sheet woes, is being bandaged by the first tranche of a capital infusion of Rs 88.139 crore as part of a jumbo Rs 2.11 lakh crore rescue package, the murky affairs in the country’s second biggest bank, the Punjab National Bank of India (PNB), has surfaced to the dismay of the authorities. The gargantuan chicanery involving an 11,500 crore rupees smartly but silently executed by a maverick diamond merchant Nirav (silent!) Modi is a bespoke paradigm in the post-reform shenanigans of the banking industry that has but few parallels to besmirch the image of public sector institutions.

The biggest scandal in India's banking sector - an alleged 11,400 crore fraud involving Punjab National Bank and diamond merchant Nirav Modi and associates — coming to light in January 2018 — will pep up the state poll campaigns, leading to Lok Sabha elections 2019.

The Narendra Modi government is discreetly moving ahead to abolish the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The idea had dominated the drawing room discussions of important BJP leaders just ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Almost all the leaders were in favour of giving a burial to the programme, but failed to muster courage as they were apprehensive of a major protest from the beneficiaries. The issue again came up for discussion after the polls, but once again the thought of antagonising the huge population of the rural poor prevailed.

The enormous effort which the BJP has put in for what many will regard as a lost cause, viz. that of winning the Tripura elections, holds a lesson for other parties. In fact, the prime minister might have mentioned his party’s determined chase of a seemingly unattainable goal in the northeastern state during his recent interaction with students on how to approach an examination.

With a letter of protests from President of Indian Information Service (IIS) Group (A) Officers Association, Anindya Sen Gupta, addressed to the Prime Minister complaining about arbitrary mismanagement of the IIS cadre by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting under Smriti Zubin Irani, who is so arrogant and insensitive taking advantage of her close proximity to the Prime Minister, to the detriment of the Union Government’s over all publicity thrust and media outreach programme, the miserable plight of the IIS service cadre has been highlighted.

Nirav Modi – Baby Face Nirav! He reminds us of the American gangster of the 1930s, Public Enemy No.1 ‘Baby Face Nelson’. Both small guys with big dreams, banks their weakness. George ‘Baby Face’ Nelson robbed banks with loaded guns. ‘Baby Face Nirav’ fraudulently unloaded cash from banks with loaded Letters of Undertakings.

"More than China... India should play a better role in Maldives than any other countries because we are neighbours. And we have been friends". This is a simple sentence but diplomatically this remark from Ahmed Mohamed, Maldives’ ambassador to India, has wider ramifications. Through his one liner he was holding India responsible for the present crisis.

Economic growth in Asia is estimated to continue at a steady pace in 2017 in comparison to 2016, but India’s growth is expected to nudge downwards as a result of taxation and monetary reforms, though expected to stay brisk, says the latest OECD bi-annual publication on regional economic growth titled ‘Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia, China, and India 2018: Fostering Growth through Digitalization. Growth in China and ASEAN is picking up due to a strong trade rebound and resilient domestic consumption.

It is rather irritatingly repetitive that borrowers jump their loans with banks. More so, large borrowers, who are themselves hugely rich, are making away with bank money. Details are now emerging, which show the ultimate hit on the banking system could top Rs20,000 crore. Maybe even more.