View Articles

Silencing the critics of demonetisation and hasty rollout of game changing indirect tax reforms Goods and Services Tax, the Narendra Modi Government came out with big ticket public investment this week particularly in roads, railways, housing to kick start the sagging economy, whose growth had dipped to 5.7 per cent of GDP in the first quarter of this financial year.

New caste equations are taking shape for the next December’s Gujarat Assembly polls even as two opinion polls — one by Times Now-VMR and another by India Today-Axis My India — have given the BJP between 118-134 and 115-125 seats respectively in the 182-member Assembly. Despite facing double anti incumbency, the ruling BJP exudes confidence about returning to power for 5th consecutive term based on its own calculations but the ground situation is complex. Interestingly, for the first time ,the major opponent Congress is fancying a win since 1995 in the state. While the BJP won 115 seats in 2012 Assembly elections, the Congress has not crossed the figure of 61 in the state Assembly since 1995.

LUCKNOW: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is facing the first major test of his performance when the civic polls will be held next month, involving elections to 16 nagar palika and 600 other urban bodies in the state. The results of the civil elections are very important as these will set the mood for the next Lok Sabha polls.

The present government is effectively in power for over 40 months and spent nearly 70 per cent of its life before the mandate of the next Lok Sabha election is due. The period may be short to bring about a sea change in the country’s administrative environment to push economic growth and all that feed the growth and social stability. This is more so after the prolonged political and administrative inactions that paralysed the economy, especially during the second part of the 10-year Congress-led UPA rule under two distinct authorities — all-powerful chairperson Sonia Gandhi with little public accountability and prime minister Manmohan Singh with little power and full responsibility. In contrast, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in full control of the BJP-led NDA government. Yet, its performance factsheet shows the government is still way behind fulfilling BJP’s key electoral promises. It has been scratching mostly on surface with programmes such as Jan Dhan Yojna, Swatch Bharat, Clean Ganga and controversially all-pervasive Aadhaar linkage covering such things as cellphone connections, bank accounts, cooking gas supplies, poor man’s ration, etc. Such programmes hardly create jobs and sustain life and livelihood of the masses.

After the Sevak-Rangpo Railway link connecting Sikkim with West Bengal is completed, the Centre will begin work on the proposed sedond phase of the project --- extending the line up to Nathu La from Rangpo, closer to the China border.

India’s IT power has evolved into its current pre-eminence because the government, meaning bureaucracy, could not do anything to stop it despite their best efforts. The government and the bureaucracy had virtually no clue as to what was happening. Otherwise they would have stalled it through various means, including labour-related and administrative issues. By the time they realised the reality, technology had grown beyond them, although they have not given up the bid to overwhelm it through regulations. Essentially, government, or more realistically the bureaucracy, and technology are the perfect antithesis of each other. There is so much of difference in their respective approaches.

The dates of Gujarat elections have at last been announced. The delayed announcement has given time to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare as many new schemes and largesses as possible for the poll bound state. Earlier, the joke doing the rounds was that the Election Commission has authorized the Prime Minister to decide time and date of elections in Gujarat to his choosing. This may be one of the jokes, so often manufactured in the Central Hall of Parliament, but the timing of the poll has indeed been of BJP’s preference. The way PM showered Central gifts on Gujarat seems to suggest that the record of his and his successor governments is not seen as convincing enough to win back the confidence of the people. Hence the fresh announcements by the centre.

Periodic bailing out of the public sector banks (PSBs), the commanding height of the country’s financial system, in the post-reform phase has become passé. But what strikes dispassionate observers is the fulsome praise and hosanna that hail such a course of action for, the management folly has a cost which is socialized even as the means to this end are cloaked in subterfuges and technicalities. To boot, no less a person than the country’s banking industry regulator, the RBI Governor, characterized it as ‘cash neutral’. It is an open secret that most PSBs require infusion of capital not only to meet the regulatory minimum capital requirements that are called in technical parlance capital adequacy norms but also for cleaning up the Augean stables of their balance sheets bruised by non-performing assets (NPAs) that are the byproduct of their imprudent lending to risky ventures or friendly corporate honchos of dubious hue with obvious political links!

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The political temperature in the state has soared with a determined Opposition demanding the resignation of Transport Minister Thomas Chandy and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government warding off the pressure by seeking legal advice on the sensitive issue.

KOLKATA: He may be evading arrest, but even on the run, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leader Bimal Gurung remains more than a match for an utterly confused West Bengal Government. Continuing to issue recorded audio statements at will from various hideouts in North Bengal and adjacent areas, he has kept several steps ahead of an obviously inept state administration.