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Last week, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was in Dhaka on a three-day visit to sign a $4.5 billion letter of credit to Bangladesh. The decision in this regard was announced last April during Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Delhi visit. India’s aid package to Bangladesh has increased steadily. This is the third LoC India has signed with Bangladesh. The first one was for $862 million, while the second one was for $2 billion. The latest deal is more than double the size of the second. Indian assistance has been primarily for the development of Bangladesh’s infrastructure sector.

Half a century ago, on October 9 1967, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, was assassinated by Mario Teran, a Bolivian army officer, following orders from the CIA. The Argentinian-born Cuban revolutionary hero died leading a guerilla struggle against the US-backed Bolivian military regime of Rene Barrientos, eight years after playing a leading role in the Cuban revolution.

As India wallows in the post-demonetisation mire, the global growth is accelerating to 3.6 per cent in 2017 and 3.7 per cent in 2018 with pickups in investment, trade, and industrial production in advanced and other emerging economies, coupled with strengthening business and consumer confidence.

So, at last Rahul Gandhi is ready to take over the 132-year-old Congress Party next month. There is a sigh of relief in the party that at last the suspense will be over. This might end the “will he, won’t he” suspense and open a new chapter for the party. Though he chose the US to announce that he was ready to be a challenger to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2019 polls, the young Gandhi has his task cut out to build the organization in the next 18 months and keep it poll ready. The party has been on a steady decline since 2014.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Will the by-election in Vengara assembly constituency in Malappuram district witness an upset victory of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate? That is the question worrying the rival United Democratic Front (UDF).

The Nobel peace prize to International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a recognition of its untiring contribution towards negotiating the Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons adopted by the UN General Assembly in July this year. The treaty prohibits development, testing, production, manufacture, or acquisition, possession or stockpiling of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, transfer and receiving of nuclear explosive devices directly or indirectly, use or threat of using nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. It also prohibits allowing stationing, installation or deployment of any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices in its territory or at any place under its jurisdiction or control.

In its fourth year in the government, the top brass in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party may be finding it quite embarrassing as more and more senior party members are becoming critical about the country’s sudden economic slowdown, especially since November, 2016. The big dip in the 2017-18 first quarter (April-June) GDP growth figure to 5.7 per cent has provoked an intense debate on the state of economy from both the opposition and some of BJP’s own senior party members and economists. The latest to publicly express his concern over the economic slowdown is no other than RSS chief Mohan Madhukar Bhagwat himself. The Sarsanghchalak of the Hindu nationalist organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is recognised as the most powerful external influencer of BJP. The Sangh chief is never known to criticise the party in public. Bhagwat expressed his concern over the current economic slowdown during his annual Dussehra lecture. Interestingly, BJP veteran Lal Krishna Advani was a special invitee at the meeting, for the first time.

LUCKNOW: Akhilesh Yadav, who has got himself re-elected as the national president of Samajwadi party for a full five years at the party’s national convention at Agra, faces tremendous challenges within the party and outside.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley keeps repeating at monotonous regularity that the benefits of demonetisation and GST would be realised in the long term, although he has no problem in acknowledging that short term pains, the manifestations of which are now visible in terms of lower growth rate, job losses and problems with the informal sectors of the economy, are unavoidable. He may or may not be right. But how long is his long term? There needs to be clarity on that.

I had the privilege of knowing M L Fotedar closely, from early 1980s, few years after he became powerful political secretary to Indira Gandhi. It was said he was eyes and ears of Mrs. Gandhi. Fotedar died at the age of 85 last week as a dejected man; he was not given a Rajya Sabha berth when the Congress was in a position to do so, not given due importance around Sonia Gandhi and did not have a place to live in Delhi. He did not build a house in the union capital even though he could have built a mansion easily in a posh area. He had to move to neighbouring Gurgoan where he lived with his family including a doctor son.