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India, as the host of the eighth BRICS summit at Goa on October 15 and 16 this year, is proposing a draft to set up a BRICS credit rating agency with the aim of ending the domination of the western dominated international credit rating agencies like Standard & Poor’s and Moody’ Investors Services. The proposal has already been discussed by the finance ministers of the five member countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and there is a possibility of a memorandum of understanding on this credit rating agency being signed at the Goa Summit.

Overwhelming victory of Trinamool Congress in West Bengal assembly election affirmed West Bengal people’s confidence in TMC. Their primary need is to rejuvenate West Bengal and make the state viable for employment opportunities.

With China announcing a massive $9 billion long term soft loan for the development of Bangladesh Railways, India’s LookEast initiative will face new tests and economic challenges.

Even as Pakistan has ratcheted up its provocative tactics against India, evidently to elicit the threat of a belligerent response so that Islamabad can tell the world of the danger of allowing the Kashmir “dispute” to fester, New Delhi has to make up its mind on how to respond to a demented neighbour which harbours a psychopathic hatred to towards India.

LUCKNOW: Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav will not be the face of Samajwadi Party in 2017 assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh nor will he be projected as chief minister.

The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and the Russian President Vladimir Putin holding their annual bilateral Russian-Indian summit on October 15-16, preponing the December meet, in Goa, coinciding with the BRICS Summit has not at all come as a surprise, what indeed has been intriguing is willingness of India to enter into a major defence deal with Russia. This is the third annual summit of Modi with Putin.

Last week, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee may have set a truly rare example by returning hundreds of acres of illegally acquired agricultural land in Singur by the previous Left Front government for Tata Motors to the farmers in a quickest possible move within days of the Supreme Court judgement, but not many states have acted in a similar fashion to right the wrong despite judicial orders. In fact, several states, including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh have been rampantly allowing conversion of farmland and small holdings of poor people for residential and industrial uses showing little respect for law or concern for poor farmers for the benefit of business houses and highly politically-connected individuals. In fact, Mamata Banerjee’s matured political action not only made the once forced land-losers of Singur extremely jubilant, but even the Tatas accepted the court verdict with grace, probably thanking the providence for the early legal settlement of issue, saving the country’s largest industrial house from more embarrassment and losses.

The Supreme Court’s commutation of the death sentence, awarded by a fast-track court in Thrissur and later upheld by the Kerala High Court, in the sensational Soumya rape and murder case constitutes a major legal setback for the Pinarayi Vijayab-led Left Democratic Front(LDF) Government in the State.

KOLKATA: Confusion among Left parties in West Bengal has been further confounded, as feared, by the recent Supreme Court verdict on the Singur land Acquisition dispute. The apex Court declared that the Left Front Government’s acquisition of nearly 1000 acres of land for the proposed Tata Nano car project had violated provisions of the 1894 Land acquisition Act.

With assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh knocking at the door, Samajwadi party has destroyed whatever image it has in the people. In a volte face, SP supremo Mulayam Singh, reversed decisions taken by his son and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. It means Shivpal Yadav gets back the portfolios he was divested. Also other sacked ministers too will get back the portfolios they had been deprived of. Shivpal will, however, continue as President of UP unit of SP. This post was given to him by Mulayam Singh after replacing Akhilesh who was state unit’s president.