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Sri Lanka president Maithripala Sirisena has dissolved parliament ten months ahead of schedule and called for general elections on August 17. Early elections became inevitable in view of the strange situation in which “the Government was in the Opposition and the Opposition was in the Government” as a wag put it succinctly. Sirisena won the presidential elections in January this year, by defeating Mahinda Rajapaksa, Now, Sirisena is the president but the Parliament is dominated by the opposition loyal to Rajapaksa.

BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh Government is presently in the dock over its decision to grant one year, extension to Justice (retired) P.P. Naolekar, Lokayukta of the state. Naolekar completed his six-year term on June 28. Normally he should have said goodbye on June 28 but will now continue to serve on this highly prestigious post for one year more.

The Modi Government heading into its second year, sees some signs of economic revival, with a boost from timely onset of monsoon, though its further course is unpredictable. While inflation may appear to remain stabilised, thanks to continuing low oil prices, what would tilt the balance is food inflation, with linkages to monsoon and supply-side management.

It was not expected it would start happening so soon. New regimes usually take time to lose their goodwill. But if a government which comes to power with euphoric popular support, even though with a meagre 31 percent vote share, starts losing its goodwill within its first year in power, something is grossly wrong with its functioning and the leader who heads it. This is happening in the case of the BJP-led NDA government and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Interest rates in the rich world have been extraordinarily low for an exceptionally long phase with “the international monetary and financial system spreading easy money and financial conditions from the core economies to other economies through exchange rate and capital flow pressures, furthering the build- up of financial vulnerabilities”. This crucial message from this year’s Annual Report of the Basel-based (Switzerland) Bank for International Settlements (BIS) released on Sunday is undoubtedly a timely wake-up call not only to its 60 odd central bank members including India but also to every economy in the world.

The BJP may have partially succeeded in maintaining internal peace by supporting Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje in l’affaire Lalit Modi, but the party cannot be unaware that it has lost the moral high ground in the process, as the current bee in its bonnet, L.K. Advani, has pointed out.

After a brief lull the Chanakya of Bihar politics is back in action but this time with more vengeance. Till a fortnight back an element of uncertainly loomed and none was sure of Nitish Kumar staging a comeback notwithstanding forging an alliance with Lalu Yadav. But the Wednesday incident, arrest of the Don Anant Singh made these people concede that Nitish Kumar would triumph. Through his action, ordering arrest of his close political aide, he has made the people of Bihar to acknowledge that he really intends to provide good governance.

“Emergency as I have seen” was the topic of debate on many TV channels; newspapers also published the account of the 21-month-long Emergency as seen by those journalists who had gone through those traumatic days. I am the one, who has seen emergency days from close quarters and covered the events of those times for the PTI for which I was working. It was night before the Emergency was imposed that well-known Jat leader Chaudhary Charan Singh could feel it in his bones; Indira Gandhi was poised to pounce on the opposition. He was sitting with his supports in the first-floor room of UP Niwas in Delhi diplomatic area—Chanakayapuri.

In West Bengal, the law and order situation has hit rock bottom, with over 100 people killed in armed clashes among rival Trinamool Congress (TMC) groups in recent months.

The recent launch of India’s first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the nuclear-capable Agni V, from Wheeler Island off the Odisha coast signaled the country’s capability to build and launch sophisticated long range nuclear missiles. This was for long an exclusive preserve zealously guarded by an “elite club” of countries— including the US, Russia, China, and France. In its remarkable proving flight, Agni V was launched from a hermetically-sealed canister mounted on a launcher truck in what the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) described as 'a deliverable configuration'.