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PATNA: The chasm between the two partners of Mahagathbandhan has widened considerably. The difference is more of the personal nature than having the ideological or political contour. The RJD boss Lalu Yadav is not happy at the way Nitish Kuma tries to portray himself as the leader of the secular forces in India. Nitish has been quite inconsistent in his approach. While he has been trying to be cozy with the BJP, particularly Narendra Modi, he is also trying to appear as the architect of the unity of the secular forces. He does not miss an opportunity to identify with Modi. This has in fact has caused much consternation in the secular circle.

The 2017 Finance Bill as passed by the Lower House on March 22 which was subsequently discussed and debated in the Rajya Sabha on March 29 with the Union Finance Minister responding to the concerns of members in both the houses is a unique but unsettling piece of legislation. After its introduction on the budget day on February 1 till its passage in the Lok Sabha, members from the disparate Opposition parties were rightly agitated over the government’s move and successful passage of as many as 40 amendments as part and parcel of the Finance Bill. That the upper house is upset over non-tax provisions masquerading as tax provisions to bypass the need for their due passage in the Rajya Sabha, is passé. What struck dispassionate observers really is the battle cry from the Opposition benches on the need to revisit the legality of the Lok Sabha Speaker’s right to resolve whether a Bill is a Money Bill or not.

There was an element of subterfuge in the BJP’s selection of Yogi Adityanath as the UP chief minister. Throughout the campaign, the party maintained a deafening silence on its chief ministerial candidate. Various names did the rounds like those of Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha and others, but there was no mention of the firebrand mahant of the Gorakhnath math, credited with being the most popular BJP leader in the state.

China is emerging as a major investor in India. . In 2015, Chinese investment in India leapfrogged eight times and China became the eighth biggest foreign investor in India. The sudden spurt in Chinese investment affirms Chinese confidence in the growth cycle of India, fuelled by low cost and high domestic demand. According to CEO of CITI group of India, “ India is among the top five markets for many MNCs”.

With the BJP spreading its tentacles all over India, the polarisation between the secular parties and the right wing BJP is bound to rise. The seven decades of the ‘left of the centre’ Congress politics in India is changing with the rise of the right wing politics. This is clear from the emergence of the new Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath but there are many more Adityanaths in the RSS and the BJP stable. The results of the recent five state Assembly polls indicate the rising power of the BJP in the other regions including the northeast, UP and Uttarakhand. The party is already looking to conquering other states, which are going to polls during next two years preceding Lok Sabha polls in 2019 including Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat., Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

Rampant involvement of journalists, across diverse media profession, in nasty game of business and statecraft put them in public glare. Journalistic clout, personal connections with persons in powerful political, bureaucratic and corporate positions make media persons very resourceful, tempting the interested groups in trade, commerce, industry, political class, government, security setup to tap them for intelligence, lobbying for various benefits on quid pro quo basis and other favours. This also puts media persons under cloud for their coloured reporting of news, its analysis and interpretations, thus denying the people their inherent right to correct and fair information. There are always exceptions that help maintain the nobility of journalistic profession. That is why accreditation of media persons to both the Houses of Parliament assumes importance as it provides unhindered proximity of media personnel to movers and shakers of power that be.

Caught off balance by a stinging Supreme Court rebuff, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has just done the unthinkable: she admitted committing a ‘blunder’ in giving a Rajya Sabha ticket to Mr. K.D. Singh, who ran the shady Alchemist chit fund. Admitting a mistake is a ‘first’ for her.

Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda deserves kudos for presenting a disturbingly true picture of the country’s state of healthcare in Parliament while presenting the national health policy. The document is reasonably dependable, though not comprehensive. It provides a complex background of the industry, dominated largely by a profit-motived private sector as successive governments faltered in providing proper healthcare to its people. There is little hope that things will change for the better. The government admits that the private healthcare industry is complex. But, it offers little towards a solution. Maybe, the damage has already been done by the persistent neglect of the sector over the last six decades leaving the field at the mercy of a corrupt and profiteering private sector. The policy document does not dig into the details about how the private sector succeeded in the complex business while the government failed despite its good intentions.

BHOPAL: On the last day of the budget session of the Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha on March 24, Comptroller and Auditor General of India demolished the claim of the BJP ruled state government that Madhya Pradesh has ceased to be a 'Bimaru Rajya'.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The performance of the 10-month-old Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government is poor.