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LUCKNOW: Shocked by the humiliating performance by the party in assembly elections, BSP supremo is now reinventing her organization to save her party cadre from running away to other parties. After series of deliberations with party leaders and important members of think tank, Mayawati announced shunting of most powerful leader in her party Nassimudin Siddiqui to Madhya Pradesh.

India tends to live in two worlds – ancient and modern. There has never been a more stark exhibition of this dichotomy than the well-known picture of a satellite being carried on a bullock cart in 1981.

There is usually some romanticism and development associated with Indian Railways and every child particularly in rural India is filled with joy and emotion on seeing a train or engine. Rightly Indian Railways have been engine of growth and formed the backbone of the country’s economic development. It is therefore critically important that its growth is ahead of economic growth by at least two percentage points to ensure that there are no transport infrastructure bottlenecks to all round development. But unfortunately over the years, particularly during the era of coalition government, Indian Railways have been subject to unbridled populism to address various political constituencies resulting in neglect of capital expenditure in this important infrastructure. This had made the Indian Railways creaking with trunk routes over utilized. Huge money spent on subsidizing passenger fares has left not much headroom for developmental activities and capital expenditure to improve the already collapsing rail services. Hundreds of projects for which stones have been laid in the course of populism, has remained only in foundation and in paper. Not much headway had been made for want of resources, which was not rightly spent on most of the economically and socially unviable projects.

It is a paradox that the people of a country which is constantly worried about the threats emanating from two hostile neighbours, Pakistan and China, should take so little interest in defence matters. Late last month, Admiral Sunil Lanba, Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, released a document that spells out India’s Joint Armed Forces Doctrine. No public discussion about the policy has taken place in the media – both print and electronic.

China’s development model in the last 25 years has awe-struck the world and has been a major reference matter in local, regional as well global economic forums. Few cared to know how the country’s biggest province, Xinjiang, or Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region as it is officially known, progressed over the years and its contribution to China’s phenomenal growth. Xinjiang, accounting for almost 50 per cent of China’s total Muslim population of around 2.50 crore, has been China’s most communally sensitive province and a hot bed of terrorist activities and religious extremism. Rich in natural resources, economic development in the region has been accompanied by large-scale immigration of Han Chinese. The planned immigration had sizeably reduced the share of Muslim population as part of Xinjiang’s total population.

It goes to the credit of Narendra Modi Government for bringing about a turn-around in India’s export through sustained trade reforms during the last three years in spite of adverse global economic situation. India is among the few emerging economies, which had escaped the worst of the adverse external environment. This global decline resulted in severe downturn in global trade and sharp fall in global commodity prices damaging exports all over. It caused the worst damage to oil and mining products exporters among developing economies. But India survived this onslaught because of expanding domestic markets and government’s vigorous Make in India campaign. India also benefited because of the falling oil and other global commodity prices like steel and cement, which helped in India’s infrastructure push, thereby helping trade as well.

Whether in measuring economic or political growth, certain advantages naturally accrue to entities/groups which start from a very low base. For them, even a slight improvement in their performance acquires the dimension of a major leap forward. Their more established competitors find the going increasingly difficult, operating from the heights they already enjoy.

Ninety days are left for Presidential election. On July 26, the next first citizen of India will step in Rashtrapati Bhavan to a 21-gun salute. Who wants the top job and who will get it?. Rumours are swirling. Experts are pumping numbers. Whispers from New Delhi’s corridors of powers are percolating from one social circle to another. The nation is waiting with baited breath.

BHOPAL: Two events which took place in the midst of prolonged Narmada Yatra will help refurbish the image of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. One such event took place in the Supreme Court where the CBI informed the Supreme Court on May 3 that Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and others would face action soon for running a high-pitched campaign in Vyapam scam against the chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan based on falsehood and forged documents.

WASHINGTON: Without waiting for a review by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to see how it will affect the health care of millions of Americans, the Republicans on Thursday rushed a bill through the House that, among other things, will allow insurance companies to jack up the cost of treatments for people with pre-existing medical conditions. It barely passed with a tiny margin of just 217 to 213 votes. And after a very short while, insurers will be able to refuse to cover such people altogether. A Kaiser analysis found that 27 percent of all Americans under the age of 65 have pre-existing medical conditions.