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Integration of South Asia has become a dream for some skeptics after the last SAARC summit at Kathmandu. They believe that SAARC’s march towards a common customs union and an economic union and then to a monetary union would continue to remain as a distant possibility for times to come. The SAARC Free Trade Area (SAFTA) already in operation has not met with much success as the official intra-regional trade remains around $22 billion a year, though trade through unofficial channels continue unabated. If the figures of unofficial trade is added up to the figures of official, the total may be somewhere around $60 billion. This shows the potentiality of the region.

Exit Nehru-Indira Gandhi era’s most pet and powerful Planning Commission. Enter NITI Aayog, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic development policy think tank. Set up by a union government resolution in March, 1950, the Planning Commission, under prime minister Nehru as its first chairman, was designed to promote a rapid rise in the standard of living of the people by efficient exploitation of the resources of the country, increasing production and offering opportunities to all for employment in the service of the community as its principal goal. It was assigned with the task of assessment of all national resources, augmenting deficient resources, formulating plans for the most effective and balanced utilisation of resources and prioritizing their implementation. It designed the national financial resource mobilization plan, followed by sectoral and state level allocations. It may be important to briefly know the history of the now-dead planning commission before assessing the need for NITI Aayog and its relevance to the present day situation under the BJP-led NDA rule.

Will 2015 – the year of hope the aspiring millions cling on to – deliver growth and jobs but without further burdening the masses already facing retail prices beyond affordable levels, no matter the statistical illusion of lowering of inflation indices the Modi Government unduly takes credit for?

The Oommen Chandy-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Government has developed an uncanny knack of courting controversies within the wink of an eye as it were.

Some commentators have deplored the conferment of India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, on Madan Mohan Malaviya, but many have welcomed its award to the Sangh Parivar’s first Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The latter include even Amartya Sen, himself a Bharat Ratna and Nobel Laureate, who called Mr Vajpayee a “great statesman” while expressing some reservations about his policies, but praising the “human quality” behind “his leadership”.

BHOPAL: 2014 is a year the Madhya Pradesh BJP will not like to forget and the Congress will not like to remember - for it brought unadulterated success for the ruling party and proved an unmitigated disaster for the grand old party of India.

‘Controversial’ films and protests against ‘controversial’ films – both have a very long tradition in the Indian Union. ‘PK’, the superhit Bollywood film, packs an eclectic punch - an alien accidentally stranded on planet earth, Indo-Pak romantic love, scheming ‘godman’, a faux version of rustic desis, Delhi and much more. Hindu Sena, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal, Hindu Yuva Vahini and other Hindutva groups have taken to the streets in certain areas claiming that the film hurt Hindu sentiments by showing Hindu gods, goddesses and ‘godmen’ in poor light.

The period when the RSS called the shots in the BJP may be nearing its end. The first setback which the RSS suffered after Narendra Modi’s rise to power was his selection of Amit Shah for the party president’s post. Since 2005, when L.K. Advani was evicted from the post by the RSS following the former rath yatri’s praise of Mohammed Ali Jinnah during a visit to Pakistan, the nomination of the BJP chief had been in the hands of the Nagpur patriarchs.

In the absence of certainty over the smooth passage of crucial economic legislations due to the numerically weaker position vis-à-vis the seemingly disparate but united by Opposition parties against their common foe in the Upper House, the NDA-led by the Bharatiya Janata Party is increasingly resorting to Ordinance Raj. Such executive diktat by the ruling dispensation, albeit being abhorrent in a democracy as it woefully lacks the imprimatur of Parliament, is inevitable, given the obduracy of even the original reform patent-holder, the Congress Party that has a dual and divided commitment to economic reforms in and out of power!

People of Jammu & Kashmir have voted massively and overwhelmingly for a better and secure future but the verdict, unfortunately turned out to be a fractured one. Also, the pattern of voting was divisive—Jammu voted overwhelmingly for the BJP and the valley for the PDP. Sadly, neither the BJP nor the PDP could get a clear majority to form a government. The National Conference could get only 15 and the Congress just 12 seats. This created a piquant situation; if the PDP joins hand with the BJP, it will be against the wishes of the people of the valley. Mahbooba Mufti’s party got the votes on anti-BJP plank and the BJP was totally rejected in the valley. On the contrary, the PDP was routed in the Jammu region.