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CHANDIGARH: Can the rot in Punjab be stemmed? Perhaps not, at least in the foreseeable future. Take any field of public activity – politics, economy or governance. The all round decay which continues unabated makes the Akali-BJP government eligible to claim the rights of the film “Three Idiots” sarcastic title song “All IS (un) WELL”! The observation may appear too sweeping and harsh. But a close look at the happenings in the state, notwithstanding the state’s ruling bosses claims to the contrary, would show that the comments are not wide off the mark.

Among the more interesting recent developments in Indian politics is the attempt to regroup fragments of the old Janata Parivar and launch a new, reunified party which recreates the once-powerful Socialist current in politics. Long a part of the Left, this current was second in importance only to the Communists until the 1970s.

The attempt by some of the losers of the last general election such as Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Nitish Kumar and others to come together has a number of negative connotations. The most obvious of them is their blatant opportunism. None of them can claim to be close friends. Yet, they have now gathered under the same roof and are even holding hands, as H.D. Deve Gowda and Sharad Yadav did, in an unconvincing display of camaraderie.

India and Russia are natural allies despite whatever is happening across the globe. Though not being an immediate neighbour, Russia is an indispensable and time-tested friend. The erstwhile Soviet Union was sympathetic towards India's struggle for independence. After Independence right from the Nehru era till today, the friendship between India and Russia passed through several trials. In the days of cold war, when India chose to for the non-aligned movement (NAM), the friendship between the two countries did not enter a bitter phase. On the contrary, there were pressure tactics from the Western bloc on India on various issues.

Six months into a chaotic bifurcation, in a pre-election ploy, of an economically vibrant Andhra Pradesh, the newly-carved Telengana and the residuary A P remain locked in multiple conflicts over division of economic overheads with unabated fury.

Now Mulayam Singh Yadav has been formally authorised to take steps to unite the splinter parties of erstwhile Janata Dal and make a new Dal. The name of the proposed unified Dal is also doing the rounds – Samajwadi Janata Dal. The first hurdle in a move of this kind is the agreement reached on who’ll be leading from the front. With the unanimous choice of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the first hurdle has been removed. But it is somewhat puzzling to see that why the leader has been asked to take steps to unite them.

“Make in India “ is a compendium of existing of policies. A hype was created that with the better governance India can splurge huge potential to the foreign investors and can stymie the domestic investors from flying away from India. But, “Make in India “ had little to offer any new thing to the investors. The important part of the “Make in India “was highlighting the easing of procedures which were broaching the investors’ initiative to expand investment in India. In contrary, the main barriers to the investors were difficulty in land acquisition, non- transparent tax system , delay in GST scheme and reluctance to open multi-brand retail to the foreign investors.

Disruption of Parliament is bad but if the government does not heed to a reasonable demand of the opposition, more so when the opposition is united, disruption follows. The BJP followed the same tactics when it was in opposition forcing disruption session after session. On few occasions the entire session was washed out. Now that the BJP is the ruling party it is facing the heat. Take the remarks of Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti — Ramzaadon versus haramzoodon – which led to repeated adjournments of Parliament. Her remarks alludes that religious minorities are illegitimate children. Sadhvi holds an important position; she is MOS in Modi Government, holding the portfolio of Food Processing Industry and not merely an MP or RSS activist. Indeed, her remarks were communal, provocative, and quite out of line for a person holding public office. She should have been dropped right away by Prime Minister Narendra Modi so that other members of the BJP desist from using such language.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi undertook a four-day whirlwind tour of the north-eastern States of Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Meghalaya and Nagaland, beginning November 29. His message to the people of the region was: You have been neglected so long. Now the Centre is with you to speed up your development. I shall come frequently to interact with you and keep an eye on the implementation of the projects.

There is a lot of talk of bringing back black money of Indians stashed away in different tax havens abroad. The ruling BJP had made this an issue in the election campaign before coming to power. It had accused the then Congress-led UPA government of being unable to bring back the black money which according to its estimate ranges between $500 billion and $1,400 billion. A study by Global Financial Integrity put the current value of illicit money outflow to be $462 billion.