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New Delhi : India, Sri Lanka and Maldives reviewed their trilateral maritime security cooperation signed way back in October 2011. At a discussion at the level of national security advisers of three countries here on Thursday, they expressed satisfaction over the progress in the implementation of various activities in the identified areas.

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh is currently facing one of the worst crises in its history. According to official estimates, standing rabi crops of wheat, gram and masoor in more than 10,000 villages have been either totally or partially damaged by hailstorm and untimely heavy rains that hit large parts of the state in the last week of February. Lakhs of farmers have been ruined and the output of food grains in the state may go down by 50 to 80 per cent, suggest preliminary estimates.

Within 75 days from now, India will get its 16th Lok Sabha and a new government at the centre. I am not here to predict the nature of the new government, its combination or whether it will survive its full term. But having saying so, I can guess that main attraction of this political battle is zoomed towards two aspects. One, whether Narendra Modi will fulfill his not-so-long standing dream of addressing the nation from Lal Qilla and second, who will emerge as number three party in India.

New Delhi : The Election Commission has caused a casualty to the Union Minority Affairs Minister Rahman Khan’s much awaited publicity.

“Scorched earth” is the kindest phrase to describe the approach of the last budget (rather, vote-on-account) of the United Progressive Alliance in its inglorious second term. Finance minister P Chidambaram savaged social sector spending, severely cut capital expenditure, pampered the elite, and left an ugly mess for his successor.

Even with defeat staring the Congress in the face, the party continues to rely on the flawed political understanding of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Unless it realizes that it is the dynasty’s egregious mistakes which are responsible for its plummeting fortune, there is no hope of reprieve for the party.

None of the major political parties at the national or regional levels has any greater ambition than to have a dominant voice, or, never mind, even becoming a bit player in the making of the next Government at the Centre, even as the BJP and its campaigner-in-chief Mr Narendra Modi are confident of becoming the arbiter of post-election change. The only exception will be the new-comer AAP already in the field to take on all other parties.

People in the two Bengals use the word ‘Goonda’ quite liberally – to refer to anything between a naughty child to the local political thug. But in the eyes of law, who is a Goonda? One of its many legal definitions is to be found in the Control of Disorderly and Dangerous Persons (Goondas) Act (East Bengal Act IV of 1954). There is goonda is someone ‘involved in affray, rowdyism or acts of intimidation or violence in any place private or public so as to cause alarm to the people living or frequenting the neighbourhood’.

The India-US political relations have suddenly got a jolt after the Khobragade affair and as of now, there are no serious efforts from the two sides to limit the damage to the bilateral economic ties. With the Lok Sabha elections due in India in April/May this year, there is every possibility that there will be no fresh initiative and the problems relating to visa controversy, energy collaboration and differences over intellectual property rights policy, will be left to the new Government at the centre after it takes over in the last week of May this year.

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Limited’s (RIL) latest denial of its alleged involvement in Rs. 6,500-crore plus money laundering through a Singapore-based ‘open-and-shut’ company, Biometrix Marketing Pte Ltd, and its reinvestment into group firms in India, including the one engaged in KG basin gas exploration, as foreign direct investment (FDI) raises more questions than provides convincing answers to the seven-year-old transaction the legality of which is yet to be established by the Delhi High Court. Legal luminary Prashant Bhushan, an anti-corruption crusader and Aam Aadmi Party leader, has raked up the issue once again as a Lok Sabha election campaign ammo. Surprisingly, RIL’s response appears to be weak, if not less convincing.