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Prime Minister Narendra Modi who will be attending the G-20 summit at Humburg in Germany on July 7 and 8, has got a good opportunity to meet the Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss about the tensions in the India-China border on the Sikkim side. After a long time, the Chinese media is reminding India of taking lessons from the 1962 war as if the situation is heading in that direction. The Indian army chief has gone to Sikkim on a two day visit and the preparations on both sides do not augur well for the future of India- China relations.

BHOPAL: There is no respite for Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister. Even as he was trying to sort out the problem created by the unexpected flood of onions into the procurement centres set up by the government, a series of suicides by farmers in the state has become a matter of serious concern.

It is the same old story. Media reports Chinese incursion across Indian border; some videos are shown. The Indian army denies any incursion took place. As on previous occasions, China ‘warns’ India to withdraw its troops from the territory which the Chinese claim is theirs. New Delhi plays it cool. Even the exact date and time of the face-off are not given. It all creates a feeling of déjà vu. It happened so many times during the UPA regime; it is now happening during the NDA rule.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is refusing to learn any lessons from the developments in the global civilian nuclear power industry in the recent past. Despite the precarious financial position of the US company Westinghouse after the Japanese major Toshiba’s withdrawal from the nuclear power business, Indian government has agreed to involve this bankrupt US company in the civilian nuclear power generation programme as a result of the big pressure from the Trump administration. At the recent India-US summit on June 26, the issue was discussed and the White House came out with a statement that the United States and India are committed to realizing commercial civil nuclear cooperation, in particular through a contract for six Westinghouse electric AP-1000 nuclear reactors to be built in Andhra Pradesh.

Karnataka State Legislative Assembly’s unanimous decision of June 20, 2017, based on a privilege committee report, sentencing two editors of Kannada tabloids to one year jail and a fine of 10,000 and in the event fine is not paid additional jail term of six months, is nothing short of riding roughshod against media.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Tension between the CPI(M) and CPI, its principal ally in the Left Democratic Front(LDF) Government, has flared up once again, causing fresh concern in LDF circles.

Whether the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to America and his talks with US President Donald Trump are an important page in the history of collaboration and cooperation between the two countries is not yet clear and lies in the womb of the future, but one thing is explicit that India has committed itself to protect US interests and become an active partner of the US global strategy.

Even before Ram Nath Kovind, the BJP’s choice for the new president, had moved into Rashtrapati Bhavan, the saffron politicians and ministers gave a broad hint of the changes in the offing by staying away from President Pranab Mukherjee’s Iftar party.

While the European Union is creating pressure on the UK to fulfill its commitment before leaving the EU, intriguingly at the same time the EU leadership is adopting a flexible approach with some of them even expressing the view that UK can continue to remain an EU member. No doubt the interest of the UK will be hurt once Brexit is formally approved and implemented, but the major loser will be the EU, as Brexit officially heralds the beginning of the deglobalisation.

One reason why the bruising political deadlock persists in Darjeeling and north Bengal hill districts is that both adversaries — the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) — indulge in unbridled political opportunism.