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The announcement by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday on the hefty development package for Bihar in the heat of the campaign for the assembly elections, might have given some boost to the morale of BJP cadres, but it may not finally bring enough dividends for the BJP led alliance in the crucial poll in October this year. Nitish Kumar has already won the battle of the Bihari minds against the Prime Minister and he will very well take the credit for forcing the PM to make the announcement which the Centre has been dillydallying for the last few months. Nitish Kumar is taking full advantage of the Prime Minister’s remarks made at the earlier meeting against him for his DNA which has angered the common Biharis.

Is the BJP becoming Congress-II, or even worse, in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana? Perhaps yes but with the difference that while the Congress’s central leadership has belatedly been able to ostensibly impose peace on the quarreling leaders of its faction-ridden three state units, the infighting in the saffron party in Punjab and Himachal has not only escalated but the wedge between it and its ruling Punjab ally Akali Dal has also been widening. In Haryana dissenting voices have also been emerging against the party’s ruling leadership.

Hogging headlines with bad days ahead for India’s exports owing to Chinese yuan devaluation. Marked the media coverage. Obsessed with simple economic theory, Indian media triggered threat on its exports, which was already dwindling since past few months. Initially, there was a jerk in stock market. But, within three days stock market bounced back with a spur. BSE Sensex soared by 518 points, to 28,067 on August 14, which reflected that the investors were unperturbed by the devaluation.

BHOPAL: It was an Independence Day gift by the voters of urban bodies for Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chauhan and BJP. Elections were held in ten local bodies and out of them, BJP captured eight, while only one was won by the Congress and other by an independent candidate.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It is yet another instance of the Oommen Chandy Government meekly succumbing to the politics of brinkmanship practised by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).

A behaviourial change in someone who was shown catching forty winks in parliament and is nowadays aggressively leading the charge of his party against the government cannot be easily explained.

A former Citybank trader, Tom Hays, recently found guilty by a London court of rigging London interbank offer rate (Libor), was sentenced 14 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud. Earlier, many top executives of multinational banks have lost their jobs, following the revelation of the Libor manipulation scandal. Libor is used as a benchmark for trillions of dollars worth bank loan transactions. India’s corporate sector is among the major borrowers under Libor and has been bearing the burden of the Libor manipulation for years. Unfortunately, there is no exemplary punishment in India for financial fraud and manipulation, including understatement of junk loans and large bank defaults by big borrowers in connivance with bank officials.

Politicians exploit illiterate farmers for vote banks. Babus (bureaucrats) wield power, armed with complex regulations. Investors limp under tainted democracy, engineered by politicians with the support of Babus.

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party national president Mulayam Singh Yadav has realized that it would be very difficult to retain power in 2017 assembly polls.

Has anyone ever seen a debate on an adjournment motion without the Prime Minister? One wonders if there is a rule under which voting is not mandatory on an adjournment motion, amounting to censuring the government. It was witnessed when Lok Sabha took up for discussion an adjournment on the penultimate day of the current monsoon session. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not seen at all as the debate progressed. The general practice over the years has been that the Prime Minister replies to the debate but, in this debate, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley deputized for him. If the PM, who is the leader of the house, shows such apathy to highest institution of the land, why blame a member who disrupts proceedings or for unbecoming behaviour.