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With the general elections barely three months away, the post-poll scenario looks extremely grim. The possibility — of either the Congress or the BJP—coming anywhere near the magic figure of 272 appears a mirage. Therefore, the fight between the two national parties is for achieving the status of single largest party. A study of BJP’s performance in the last four Lok Sabha elections, starting from 1998, reveals that the party with its present strength and the existing allies, will find it difficult to touch its all-time high of 182 seats registered in 1998 and 1999, let alone 272-Plus.

After CWG, 2G and Coalgate, the poll-bound UPA government now seems to be preparing itself to face a yet another big-time case of corrupt intent involving changes in cost audit rules in the newly created Companies Act to benefit industry and the corporate sector billions of dollars per annum at the cost of the exchequer and consumers. The draft new rules, if allowed in their current scope and content, will substantially undermine the role of cost audit of products and services with effect from April 1 giving industry liberty to fiddle with cost statements to manipulate prices and profits. They open up the biggest single door of ‘authorised’ corporate corruption, making it potentially a mother of all scams.

New Delhi: India has decided to invite an influential Tamilian from Malaysia to be the Chief Guest at the three-day twelveth gala conference of Overseas Indian being hosted here from January 7, thereby indicating that it has not forgone the interests of Tamil people in Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

BHOPAL: Octogenarian CPM leader VS Achuthanandan is confident that unitedly, the secular forces can stall the onward march of the communal army led by the fascist leader Narendra Modi. He is also confident that the Left front will win a majority of Lok Sabha seats in Kerala and will return to power in the State in the next Vidhan Sabha election.

India Government is giving special importance to the visit of the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to India in January 2014.The visit is special for two reasons. Firstly, there is a big possibility of the crucial agreement on nuclear energy cooperation being signed during the visit. Secondly, there will be a big push to the Japanese investments in India, especially in the infrastructure sector including road and rail transport. Hectic consultations are being held on both the areas and the Indian officials are hoping that the India-Japan declaration in January 2014 will be a historic one imparting a new dimension to India-Japan political and economic ties.

New Delhi: India's bordermen are no longer limited in their duty to guard country's borders. They have taken up the onus of maintaining peace and security and disaster management in foreign land.

New Delhi: India and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement on labour cooperation for domestic service workers' recruitment.

New Delhi: The Maldives Government is in no mood to restore the $511million project for the development of Male International Airport to the Indian investor, the GMR group, even though it is eager for an out-of-the-court settlement of the issue.

The top brass of the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is almost split asunder between two factions. One is led by the UCPN(Maoist) chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, aka Prachanda and the other with Baburam Bhattarai, who put in his papers as the vice-chairman in June last. The schism was brewing for several months before the disastrous performance of the party in the election to the Constituent Assembly, held in November this year. But it came to a head somewhat prematurely for the party’s disastrous performance in the election to the Constituent Assembly in 2013. It won just 26 seats in direct election (first-past-the-post – FPTP) out of 240 directly elected members of CA.

What does the crystal ball say about the year 2014? It looks to be unpredictable and one of political shocks and economic shifts. Broadly speaking, the past few months have seen many political and macro economic developments, which will be unveiled further in the current year.