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After having a military logistics sharing deal with the USA only a couple of months back, India preferred to sign agreement with Ukraine for manufacturing of 500 transport planes as well as the supply of gas turbines for Indian warships at the Defexpo India 2016 held in Goa.

The second bi-monthly monetary policy statement of RBI Governor Dr Raghuram Rajan, on June 7 leaves policy rates unchanged, as was expected, given the recent upsurge in CPI inflation with its future trajectory 'somewhat uncertain'.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Groupism in Congress has become a thing of the past, gushed Ramesh Chennithala, in the first flush of having taken over as the Leader of the Opposition (LOP) and leader of the Congress Legislature Party. Ramesh was named for the post as former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy refused to become LOP, having accepted responsibility for the crushing defeat the UDF suffered in the Assembly election.

Controversies are an undividable part of a functioning democracy. They erupt in hordes in election years and play an important role in influencing the course of politics. With eight months left in Punjab Assembly elections, the state is also witnessing controversies which have started polluting the state’s religio-political atmosphere raising the question whether Punjab is heading for the eighties pre-terrorism situation.

If and when Rahul Gandhi becomes the de jure Congress president from his present de facto status, as Jairam Ramesh wants, it will undoubtedly be the first instance of a proven failure in politics to rise to the top of his party on the basis of nothing else but lineage.

It is discomforting to note that India, home of 1.3 billion people, is suddenly faced with a domestic coal glut situation with an annual production of only a little over 600 million tonnes. On the contrary, China, having a population close to India’s, produced 3.68 billion tonnes of coal in 2015 and was crying hoarse that the output was 3.5 per cent lower than the previous year’s production. Coal accounts for 73 per cent of China’s electricity generation, nearly the same as India’s in percentage term. In a way, India’s current domestic coal glut is mainly on account of uncontrolled coal imports mostly by private sector power companies. This year’s pre-budget economic survey put the previous year’s coal import figure at over 212 million tonnes which was over 20 per cent of the country's production that year. India’s coal imports may be down this year, but they need to be curbed drastically to maintain the tempo of domestic production.

China has been a long term challenge for India. Politically, China has been a persistent threat on India’s borders and dampener to India’s relation with its neighbours. Economically, India has become a dumping ground of Chinese goods after the recession in the west and rise of free trade power in South East Asian countries.

The ongoing Rajya Sabha elections are crucial not only for the Congress but for the BJP also. It may change the complexion of the Upper House and bring some of the stalwarts. They include Congress leaders like P. Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal. The BJP has turned the Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh into a contest, as it counters the Congress attempt to bring Sibal to the upper house. The saffron party has fielded Priti Mahapatra, who runs an NGO and is wife of a businessman called Harihar Mahapatra as the 12th candidate.

AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa might have won a historic battle reversing the yo-yo pattern of win by DMK and AIADMK, the two Dravidian parties, in assembly elections in southern state of Tamil Nadu since 1989. But one cannot undermine the performance of rising sun, the symbol of DMK. For the first time the election campaign was single handedly managed by the DMK superemo M Karunanidhi's rising son M K Stalin, who ensured the party, which touched its nadir in popularity after the 2G spectrum scam, was revived to become a major regional political force again in the state which has 39 Lok Sabha seats and 234 assembly seats.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be having substantial discussions with the United States President Barack Obama during his visit to Washington on June 7 and 8. This first bilateral visit by the Indian PM to the USA, will be an opportunity for the Indian side to review the progress made by the two governments in the areas of economy, energy, defence, environment and security. President Obama is in the last leg of his tenure with only less than eight months left .But he is becoming more assertive in his last year in office taking a number of bold and innovative decisions. Indian side is also expecting from the outgoing President a pro-active approach in imparting a strategic dimension to the India-US political and bilateral relations.