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The Congress party’s latest headache now comes from Karnataka, the biggest Congress ruled state, after it tasted such rebellion from Chhattisgarh, Manipur, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Uttarakhand and Puducherry in recent times. Karnataka is heading towards a political crisis after the chief minister Siddharamaiah dropped 14 of his ministers last week and inducted 13 new ministers. The major reshuffle came soon after the Rajya Sabha elections after the Congress won three of the four Rajya Sabha seats and four of the seven seats in the state legislative council's biennial elections. These elections saw allegations of blatant corruption and cross voting.

Bangladesh has urged upon its fellow members in the BIMSTEC grouping to implement more practical programmes like building bridges, widening roads and improve regional power connectivity on a priority basis. Representatives from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Thailand recently attended a meeting at the organisation’s headquarters in Dhaka.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced recently that almost all states except Tamil Nadu are on board on the draft Goods and Services Tax bill that aims, among other things, to take away most autonomous taxation powers from the state governments. GST will replace almost all taxes that the state governments and the Union government now exact on goods and services. From being opposed by the then-Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, to now being furiously pursued by the Union Government of India, led by its Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Goods and Services Tax bill has come a long way indeed.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front(LDF) Government has taken strong exception to the move of the Central Government to disinvest shares of the Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Ltd(FACT) and merge the State Bank of Travancore(SBT) in the State Bank of India(SBI).

Just two days ahead of the crucial referendum which would decide the future of the Britain and draw out a fresh contour of the geopolitics of the region, as a last ditch attempt the USA has floated the rumour that Scotland will quit the United Kingdom if the vote on June 23 goes against remaining in the European Union and would have another referendum on declaring it as an independent country.

The killer of the pro-Europe British MP, Jo Cox, shouted “Britain First” before shooting and stabbing her.

The Modi Government, and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in particular would have a sense of relief, with the decision of the globally-acclaimed Dr Raghuram Rajan, Governor of RBI, to return to academia, at the end of his three-year term on September 3, saving them embarrassment from a rejection of extension of his term.

Increasing cost of thermal power, especially those from private producers and discoms such as Tata Power, Reliance, Adani and CESC, is becoming a growing concern of both consumers and the government which subsidises the power tariff in a number of ways in a bid to keep the generators, suppliers and consumers of all sorts – agricultural, industrial and domestic – happy across the country. Discoms in Delhi have proved to be a pain for both the Aam Aadmi Party government and bulk suppliers like NTPC. Lately, CESC came under severe criticism for high power tariff from industrial consumers in West Bengal at a Ficci meeting in Delhi.

Even her worst critics concede this: whatever her other drawbacks (and there are many!), West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has galvanised the usually somnolent state administration at all levels during 2011-16, her first tenure.

India has a big opportunity to show its leadership capability to address the major economic issues facing the world at the 8th BRICS summit in Goa on October 15 and 16 this year. As the Chairman of the BRICS-Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa group for the year 2016, India is the host of the summit and it can sponsor a number of proposals which will help in giving a new dimension to the course of economic collaboration among the BRICS group members. At the last Ufa summit in 2015, a number of important proposals were discussed and India has adopted the theme of the Goa summit as Building Responsive, Inclusive and Collective Solutions.