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In a keynote speech to the Jaipur literary festival, Amartya Sen said something which he might not have done some years ago. ‘I want to see a party’, he said, ‘that is pro-market and pro-business to come to power and doesn’t prioritize one religion over another’.

Indian diplomacy on China has failed squarely as it has not been able to assert the Johnson Line in the northern sector and the McMahon Line in the eastern sector, drawn by the colonial rulers as India’s boundary line. This is despite the fact that India’s official map has recognised these lines since Independence.

NEW DELHI: The stand of the US state department that the Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade presently does not enjoy immunity from prosecution for the “crimes charged in the indictment” exposes the double standard of the US Government in applying its laws, according to the diplomatic sources. Sources say that a French diplomat, charged for much graver crimes, was allowed to leave USA and then after a gap, returned again as the consul general in San Francisco.

KOLKATA: There has been an unusual lull in Bangladesh after the elections and after Sheikh Hasina was sworn in as Prime Minister for the second time in succession. The BNP-Jamaat led Opposition, which had boycotted the 5 January, threatened not to recognise the new Government as a legitimate one and to carry on their agitation till fresh elections were held. Hasina’s response was that the elections were perfectly valid and her government would last its full term of five years.

The DMK Patriarch, 90-year old Mr M Karunanidhi, is in agony as the battle for succession within the family reaches a new pitch, before he can devise a credible poll strategy with trusted Dravidian satellites, to arrest a galloping race by Ms. Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK for capturing all the 40 seats of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in Lok Sabha.

Strange and unpredictable are the ways of politics. Fortunes undergo such wild fluctuations within the wink of an eye as it were that one day you are up in the clouds and the next day you find yourself down in the dumps.

Rarely has an interview drawn so much attention, both for right and wrong reasons, as that of Rahul Gandhi’s to Times Now. Almost the entire media—both print and visual—pounced on him, accusing him of being repetitive, ridiculous, there is much to criticize, superficial, a coup by Times Now, uttered the world “system” six times. He uttered the word in such dire tone, you felt a monster is waiting for the interview to end before it systematically gobbled us all in its “predatory” way. However, empowerment of women, youngsters, RTI, deepening democracy are real issues for Rahul.

New Delhi: Indian Coast Guard is expected to add another 20 vessels in the current year to guard 7500 km long country's coastline.

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party national President Mulayam Singh Yadav has set the target for 60 Lok Sabha seats out of total of 80 seats from UP Uttar Pradesh before all SP ministers and senior party leaders.

Whatever be the indicative numbers and party positions projected in the newest series of pre-poll surveys, senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders in West Bengal are highly upbeat over the possibility of winning as many as 36 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. This means about 20 per cent more seats for TMC than what the average number forecast for the party by four top survey agencies, including global leader A C Nielsen, in their latest pre-poll sample survey reports.