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When L.K. Advani set out on his Somnath-to-Ayodhya rath yatra in September, 1990, his hope – apart from mobilizing the communal-minded Hindus in the BJP’s favour – must have been to emerge as a leader in his own right, away from the overarching shadow of Atal Behari Vajpayee, then the undisputed No. 1 in the BJP. For the next two months till his arrest in Bihar, Advani’s yatra, marked by communal tension and violence, did fulfil his dream of becoming a major figure in national politics.

Skill is an indispensable instrument for improving productivity and addressing labour-market imbalances. It has been recognized even before independence of India however, the efforts rendered towards skill development have been highly fragmented and record a very appalling figure of 4.69 per cent of workforce with formal vocational skills in contrast to 60 per cent to 90 per cent in the developed counties. In this backdrop a new Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) was formed in November, 2014.

Can the two AIADMK factions reunite and continue to be relevant in Tamil Nadu? Almost seventy-five days after the split in the party, the AIADMK Amma (led by chief minister Edappadi Palaniswamy) and the AIADMK Puratchi Thalaivi Amma (led by former chief minister O. Panneerselvam who had revolted and split the party) have set up committees for merger talks. Even if the merger takes place after hard negotiations, can the party survive till the next elections?

BHOPAL: Two major accidents killing about two dozen persons and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's outbursts against his own ministers and senior civil servants left many question unanswered. Chouhan known for his cool and balanced behaviour, sudden lost temper and publicly pulled his ministerial colleagues for their absence from important party meetings.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Out of the frying pan into the fire. That is exactly the predicament the CPI(M), which heads the controversy-prone Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government, finds itself in.

US President Donald Trump has put the world on edge. Recent spate of events - bombing of Syria, sending the US carrier strike group towards Korean peninsula, dropping 'mother of all bombs' on ISIS in Afghanistan - indicate his love for war. In fact, recent US budgetary documents suggest for the fiscal 2018, Trump administration has allocated the most towards defence and the least towards protection of environment. Compared to 2017, defence and homeland security has seen an increase in budgetary allocation by 10% and 7%, respectively. Environmental protection agency saw budgetary allocation declined by 31%. US has allocated $ 654 billion towards defence, the highest in the world. This is much higher in comparison to India's $53.5 billion and China's $152 billion.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid to bring about a mandatory code on drug marketing practices to ensure doctors prescribe generic drugs rather than high priced branded medicines and make pharmacists follow the rule for the benefit of the common man is a novel one, though not quite a new idea. Since 1975, after the submission of the Hathi Committee report, government after government tried to discipline the drug industry and its key on ground marketing tool, prescription-writing doctors and surgeons, with modest success. Over the years, prices of drugs, especially the patented and new generation medicines, have sky-rocketed. This is despite the existence of the drug price control order (DPCO, 1995 and 2013), the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (1997) controlling the prices of essential drugs and the government’s attempt to fix post-manufacturing expenses (PME) for prescription drugs. And all throughout, doctors were constantly induced to prescribe generic medicines to patients with limited success. The drug firms and doctors have remained adamant.

A big jolt was made to Mauritius foreign direct investment in India, after the new tax treaty snapped the benefits of tax haven status of Mauritius. Despite being the least developed country, Mauritius has been the biggest foreign investor in India. It accounted for 33 percent of the total FDI flow in India. Paradoxically, the main investors were non-Mauritius companies. The major investors through Mauritius were American and European companies and large investments were made through round-trip money by Indian honchos.

Two power-driven factions of ruling AIADMK, a magnificent political structure that late Amma Jayalalithaa created in her lifetime, were nearly bringing down the edifice, before agreeing on a truce on April 22 though with substance yet to be negotiated.

If convicted in Babri case L K Advani and others would get a minimum of five years in jails. Apart from BJP veterans Advani, M M Joshi and others, it is the BJP credibility that will be on trail for next two years and the outcome will coincide with the Lok Sabha elections. Their conviction would mean a sad end to political careers built on inflaming communal passion that had resulted in the Babri Masjid demolition and some 2,000 killings in riots that followed. They face the prospect of spending their sunset years in prison. Some of them had visualized of occupying either the PMO or Rashtrapati Bhavan.