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An elaborate exercise in “friendliness” to the farmer in distress for long, to the small business, devastated by demonetisation, and “healthcare” for poorer sections, crafted by Prime Minister Modi, was faithfully projected by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the Union Budget for 2018/19.

An unexpected political development in Nagaland has made the holding of state Assembly elections on February 27 uncertain. On January 29, eleven political parties of the state decided to boycott the elections, demanding an early solution to the Naga political problem. The BJP, which can by no stretch of imagination be called a ‘Naga’ party was also a signatory to the joint statement, much to the chagrin of the party’s central leadership because the boycott was actually to protest the Centre’s feet dragging on the issue. The joint statement stated that “the opportunity for a peaceful resolution of the Naga political issue has never been this favourable, as the political negotiations are in an advanced stage and we can’t afford to distract the focus from the (peace) process at any cost.” The BJP is the ruling party at the Centre and its state unit was joining a boycott call given by other parties!

BHOPAL: Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, who has launched a frontal attack on the policies of the Modi government, has this time taken the fight to Madhya Pradesh, causing embarrassment to chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Sinha is sitting on an indefinite dharna in Narsingpur district to support the demands of farmers. He is being supported by Shatrughan Sinha.

If we all have a point of view, are we all not biased? So, forget the rhetoric. Disregard feigned outrage – from the Congress and the Samajwadi Party; TDP and TMC, Shiv Sena and the Akali Dal; Left parties and the ‘superstar’ Tamil politician who is bound to his state’s border and bull-tamers. Most of all, don’t let media bias affect rational thinking – Budget 2018-19 is a vision document masquerading as a vote-catcher.

The interminable debate over the final full-fledged General Budget of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) headed by Narendra Modi apart, the 2018-19 budget belied the credo of the Modi government as market-friendly and growth-focused. This is palpably obvious as the feisty Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, presenting his fifth budget, has not refrained from creating hostages to political fortune. With elections to as many as eight assembly states due this year before the mega general election in 2019, the ambivalence to have one foot on the much-trodden welfare socialist path and another wobbly one on incremental measures to tax-paying community partners in progress does betray a lamentable lack of single-handed purpose to push growth, come hell or high-water. If only the government believed in its own manifesto-mantra of minimum government and maximum governance, this budget-makers would not have littered the doing business in India efforts with a menacing number of fiscal proposals to render the already high-cost domestic economy an intractable terrain to operate both for domestic as well as overseas investors.

The stage is set for the next Lok Sabha elections in India within 2018. The way the country’s economic and political situation is developing, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot take the risk of waiting till the scheduled period of April/May 2019 for holding the Lok Sabha elections. All studies prepared by the BJP think tanks have indicated that the situation is changing very fast against the BJP and the more time is given to the opposition, the BJP will be loser.After the drubbing at theby elections in Rajasthan, reports from Madhya Pradesh about the political mood in the current by elections campaign, have also given signal that the Modi wave is fast waning and the Congress organization is consolidating quite fast under the leadership of the President Rahul Gandhi.

Is the government really serious about the newly proposed insurance-backed national health protection scheme (NHPS) in the budget? Probably not. It may protect insurance firms and private healthcare outfits, but not the common man’s health. Only public hospitals, well-equipped public medical centres, dedicated physicians and para-medical staff and affordable medicines can help protect the health of the public. Not insurance companies. Not certainly in India where healthcare facilities are under acute shortage. Moreover, limited individual health insurance benefit does not cover even a fraction of highly inflated medicare costs in private hospitals and clinics.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It has, once again, been an unremitting tale of neglect of Kerala in the Union Budget.

Indians gave the zero to the world. Indian sages understood zero to mean absolute nothingness as well as its potential for infinite power. For them, the zero was not just an entity in the place value system, it had a philosophical connotation. The quintessential Indian spirituality saw everything originating in shunya, the Indian word for zero, and ending up in shunya, or nirvana, a state of total bliss in which nothing mattered. There are even suggestions that the mathematical zero originated in the spiritual shunya. Saffron elements are now going out of their way to re-discover and re-establish ancient Indian knowledge, though mostly for the wrong reasons. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has done his bit, adding to the mysticism of zero, conjuring up a figure that would set us on an astronomical odyssey. But there is a lurking suspicion that in the process he may have placed Indians on the wrong side of zero.

The war between the Trump Administration and the FBI reflects a deep division in the U.S. capitalist ruling class that could have far-reaching consequences for the progressive movement. The immediate cause stems from the investigation by Robert Mueller into Trump’s ties with the Russians, his collusion with their effort to interfere in the 2016 election, and his efforts to “obstruct justice” by sabotaging Mueller’s probe.