View Articles

The strategic partnership between India and US is primarily driven by defence related deals. There is no other propelling element. It is a vibrant deal till India responds positively to the American requirements. The strength of the partnership is judged by the nature and quantum of defence deals. An analysis of the ‘strategic partnership’ between India and US and the defence deals struck, raises some serious questions regarding their utility and effects on achieving India’s strategic interests. The Modi government had signed 147 procurement contracts worth over Rs 2.96 lakh crore in three years.

With the agitation against government effort to grab adivasi land and handing over the same to the private and corporate sectors for setting up industries, the Union government is also steadily moving ahead with the plan to implicate the activists on the plea of being Maoists. But undeterred of the NDA government’s machinations, stir against Adani project spreads across Godda. The activists have resorted to a sort of direct action.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said recently that India’s infrastructure gap is so huge that it will take at least two decades to bridge. At the same time this major bottleneck to development provided an opportunity for massive investment. Prime Minister Narendra Modi Government has therefore focused rightly on infrastructure development from day one it came to power in May 2014.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: April has been a cruel month both literally and politically for Kerala. The people of the state are feeling the heat with a blazing summer sun glaring down on them. But the soaring mercury outside is nothing compared to the political heat wave hammering the Left Democratic Front(LDF) Government.

With an army of 1.33 million employees under its fold, the Indian Railways (IR) today stand at the crossroads to rediscover its relevance and role in shaping India’s mobility of its legions of upwardly mobile youthful people. For the major arterial mode of transport, IR saw some wrenching changes in recent times, including an abrupt end to its privileged status of presenting its own budget, a colonial practice that survived close to seven decades. The Modi Government has not only merged the rail budget with the General Budget but also put paid to political allies of the governing coalition using the railways as gravy train to batten on without qualms to the larger consequences of such patently populist practices inflicting havoc on the spine and sinews of the railways down the years.

When L.K. Advani set out on his Somnath-to-Ayodhya rath yatra in September, 1990, his hope – apart from mobilizing the communal-minded Hindus in the BJP’s favour – must have been to emerge as a leader in his own right, away from the overarching shadow of Atal Behari Vajpayee, then the undisputed No. 1 in the BJP. For the next two months till his arrest in Bihar, Advani’s yatra, marked by communal tension and violence, did fulfil his dream of becoming a major figure in national politics.

Skill is an indispensable instrument for improving productivity and addressing labour-market imbalances. It has been recognized even before independence of India however, the efforts rendered towards skill development have been highly fragmented and record a very appalling figure of 4.69 per cent of workforce with formal vocational skills in contrast to 60 per cent to 90 per cent in the developed counties. In this backdrop a new Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) was formed in November, 2014.

Can the two AIADMK factions reunite and continue to be relevant in Tamil Nadu? Almost seventy-five days after the split in the party, the AIADMK Amma (led by chief minister Edappadi Palaniswamy) and the AIADMK Puratchi Thalaivi Amma (led by former chief minister O. Panneerselvam who had revolted and split the party) have set up committees for merger talks. Even if the merger takes place after hard negotiations, can the party survive till the next elections?

BHOPAL: Two major accidents killing about two dozen persons and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's outbursts against his own ministers and senior civil servants left many question unanswered. Chouhan known for his cool and balanced behaviour, sudden lost temper and publicly pulled his ministerial colleagues for their absence from important party meetings.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Out of the frying pan into the fire. That is exactly the predicament the CPI(M), which heads the controversy-prone Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government, finds itself in.