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BHOPAL: Since its formation in 1956, Madhya Pradesh has never witnessed violence at such a scale. Over the last seven days, dozens of trucks, buses, cars and other vehicles, petrol pumps, shops and factories have been set ablaze, causing loss to the tune of tens of crores of rupees. Six farmers have been killed in police firing and more than 50 policemen injured. Lakhs of rupees worth milk, vegetables, fruits and eggs have been dumped on the roads and anger and resentment against the government seem to be pervading the air.

A new regime of trade and business under the Goods and Services Tax would be easy, simple process of taxation that will liberate the administrative structure from clutches of a rampant corruption. However the scheme that is underway from next month indeed suggests it will not end the old era but will bring additional difficulties. The political authority guided and steered by the administrative class has not been able to shed its mentality of assuming that every small or big businessman will invariably cheat the state to avoid paying the due tax. The suspicions of intent and morality of every Indian was the evolution of the British Raj and the governments of independent India have not been able to emerge out of that mentality.

Kathmandu: The tourist arrival in Nepal rose by 39.71 per cent in 2016 after plunging into a six-year-low the previous year in the wake of a devastating earthquake.

The negotiations on the much-touted India-European Free Trade Agreement had reached a dead end in 2013 after hard bargaining by both sides on some of the contentious issues. The resurrection of the stalled FTA talks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to Europe has raised new hopes to push globalisation especially when more advanced nations like USA were inclined toward protectionism triggered by global recession and mounting unemployment.

In all these years, only one Indian scientist has received the Nobel Prize. He was Sir C.V. Raman who won it in 1930. There hasn’t been anyone else from India since then although Indians living and working abroad like Hargobind Khorana, Subramanyam Chandrashekhar and Venkataraman Ramakrishnan have won the prize.

The diplomatic crisis that engulfed the Arab world last week, with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt and a few other Saudi minions severing diplomatic ties as well as land and air connectivity with Qatar, is the culmination of several proxy wars being fought together, although its abruptness may have surprised everyone, including the Qataris.

The nature and quality of education provided in a state define the character of that state and its educational institutions. All chief ministers claim credit for providing quality education and preparing batches of highly qualified youths. But Nitish Kumar, who has been ruling Bihar for the past eleven years, has been quite euphoric about his government’s achievements in the educational sphere. He often boasts of raising the standard of education. But the fact remains that a deep cancerous malaise continues to inflict the state and Kumar has proved to be an utter failure.

India and Pakistan will be attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO) summit on June 8 and 9 at Astana in Kazakhstan for the first time as full members. This will give an opportunity to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to meet his counterpart of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif after a gap of one and half year and it is in the interests of both the countries that they hold serious political discussions at this summit to defuse the tensions in the region.

Just before the elections in 2004, I interviewed the DMK chief M Karunanidhi and asked him why he was becoming a part of the UPA. He paused for a minute and then explained that in his opinion there was space for the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA to emerge as an alternative. He could read the political situation so well and the UPA came to power in 2004 and also returned in 2009. Has the time come for another opposition unity move?

On June 8, Thursday, Britain is witnessing a unique general election. The Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn who started his campaign in the beginning of the last month as a “not winnable” candidate in the eyes of the corporate media and even by several leading members of his own Party, has emerged as the front runner for the Prime Minister’s post as the election battle is coming to a close. Corbyn’s election manifesto for a New Britain has attracted the common Britishers and despite the continuous slanders against him by the Conservative Party leaders and the media close to them, opinion polls are showing big surge by the Labour as against the Conservatives.