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I am sipping coffee at the leisure room in Burlington senior centre after my daily workout at the gym there. A white lady, whom I know to be very civic and gentle in nature as we met and talk frequently at the leisure room. She was seated opposite to me. Suddenly she asked me “where do you live?” I answered back but she couldn’t locate it. To refer a land mark, I said that I live next to Baron Park, a very big housing complex and well known. She sneered back, after a pause, “Oh! It’s a horrible place, infected by blacks.”

One wonders what was the tearing hurry for re-promulgation of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Ordinance for the third time. This was done when the Joint Select Committee of Parliament was examining the land bill. One reason may be that the Land Ordinance would have lapsed on June 3. To avoid that the Modi government re-promulgated it. Irrespective of the legality or otherwise of this step, the immediate fall out is that the opposition MPs on the joint committee are proposing to disassociate themselves from it. Sitaram Yechury, CPI-M general secretary and a member of the committee, has described the re-promulgation of the ordinance as “absolutely untenable constitutionally”.

No wonder West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is again upset with the judiciary.

BHOPAL: Almost the entire who is who of the Congress reached Mhow in Madhya Pradesh on June 2 to project Rahul Gandhi as a champion of Dalits. Mhow, a small army headquarters, happens to be the birthplace of Dr. B R Ambedkar. Those who accompanied Rahul included former ministers Sushil Kumar Shinde, Mallikarjun Kharge, K Raju, P Chidambaram, Bhakta Charandas, National Commission for Scheduled Castes chairman and Rajya Sabha member P L Punia, Manishankar Iyer, C P Joshi, Mukul Wasnik, AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh, former minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, PCC president Arun Yadav, MP Vidhan Sabha Leader of Opposition Satyadev Katare, party spokesman Raj Babbar, Rajiv Shukla, state in-charge general secretary Mohan Prakash and many others..

Pakistan’s political scene once again shows signs of turning towards a stronger democratic direction with the emergence of Awami National Party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, citadel of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, led by the charismatic Imran Khan, former cricket captain of Pakistan. The PTI seems unnerved with the re-assertive ANP that ruled K-P a few years ago. The shaky mindset of ruling PTI was reflected when the former K-P information minister and Awami National Party (ANP) central general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain was arrested on May 31 after the killing of Habibullah ,a PTI worker in Pabbi area of the Nowshera district.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s maiden visit to Bangladesh this weekend is quite significant in view of the importance he reposes in ‘neighbours first’ policy. While his Bangladesh counterpart Sheik Hasina was the first international leader to invite him to visit Dhaka, Modi’s meeting with Hasina takes place after he has completed his one-year in office. Bangladesh is strategically important for India primarily for connectivity through Bangladesh to the northeastern states and maintenance of security. Modi government is keen on both issues.

Nitish Kumar may not find a place in the revived Janata Parivar. It may appear to be a nonsensical argument. But the manner in which the political developments are taking place and the RJD chief Lalu Yadav is pushing through his game plane, it simply reinforces this perception. If the strategies of Lalu Prasad are indicative of the future of the political discourse in Bihar, then the JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav would be playing the role of king maker but this time he would not be coronating Nitish.

At a time when agrarian discontent is brewing due to the weather-related aberrations and the consequent dashing of farmers’ hopes, the Modi Government is single-mindedly pursuing the passage of the land bill as a prestige issue. The 2013 Land Acquisition Act (LAA) of the UPA government was passed after all-party consensus but when the NDA government came to power in May 2014, it sought to bring some amendments to the Act. But the original Act enacted party expressed resentment so much so that the Modi Government had to resort to ordinance for the first time last year to amend the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. The ordinance was replaced by a bill.

Peace and stability in Bangladesh is vital for India which needs effective connectivity not only to its own north-eastern region but also to South-East Asia. A sense of satisfaction emanates from the fact that both the economies are growing at faster rates transcending their internal problems – India at over 7% and Bangladesh at over 6%. But the growth needs to be sustained in the long run and move into the area of double-digit. Dhaka is India’s largest trading partner in South Asia. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has set forth a vision of a middle-income, technologically advanced and knowledge-based country by 2021 and a developed country by 2041.

Reserve Bank India has cut repo rate by 25 basis points. That’s about the maximum, RBI appears to say, it could have in the current situation.