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A Reserve Bank circular on August 14, 2014, a day before the Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his long cherished financial inclusion programme, Jan Dhan Yojna (PMJDY), for the country’s poor, may have gone unnoticed and unknown to the most unbanked citizens, but now 18 months later it is acting as a spoiler to the spirit of the campaign as there is severe shortage of automated teller machines and ATM transaction fees for the common man are posing as the biggest challenge to the success of the ambitious financial inclusion scheme. The world’s biggest financial inclusion programme seems to have hit a bureaucratic hurdle after the initial excitement and excellent response from the country's millions of unbanked small rural businessmen, artisans and wage earners. Banks, including regional rural banks, seem to be losing interest in the project to the benefit of traditional private chit fund operators.

LUCKNOW: Emboldened by the recent survey which predicted big win for BSP in 2017 assembly polls, former chief minister and party supremo Mayawati is much ahead of all other political parties in making preparations for crucial elections are concerned.

Of the five states, which have gone to poll, election in Tamil Nadu is most interesting. The biggest challenge before voters is which of the two Dravidian parties they should vote for. Leaders of both the parties are neck-deep in corruption; to attract voters both have offered lucrative gifts. Both the DMK and AIADMK adopt all means, even unethical, to run down their opponents.

In most economic reviews, concerns were expressed over the fragile health of India’s exports. The policy makers reiterated that the global crisis was the main reason for India’s export slide. They argued that notwithstanding Indian rupee depreciated (by over 8 per cent during past two years) and the two last EXIM policies intensified export based imports, exports witnessed negative growth during past two years. After having an exponential high growth of export till 2013-14, exports made a sudden plunge, slipping into a negative growth space since 2014-15.

The Rs 3546 crore Agusta-Westland contract, signed in 2010 to purchase 12 Anglo-Italian AW101 helicopters for the Indian Air Force to carry VIPs like the President and the Prime Minister, has revived the ghost of the 21 British Westland helicopters purchased by late Rajiv Gandhi’s government in 1985 for PSU carrier Pawan Hans. Like the Agusta-Westland deal allegedly involving the Italians and the Indian bigwigs including Sonia Gandhi, the earlier Westland deal involved the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Rajiv Gandhi.

Yet another Parliament session seems to be moving towards a washout because of the confrontation between the ruling party and the Congress led opposition. With both sides armed with ammunition to attack each other, there is no meeting point. Nor has the government made any efforts to woo the opposition.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It does not pay to be too clever in politics. The wily Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, for once, seems to have realized this in his attempt to score a brownie point against leader of the Opposition, V. S. Achuthanandan.

In the face of current world economic crisis, poised by bubble burst in China and the financial crisis in European Union and further to be triggered by Britain exit from EU ( highly speculated), regional integrations have become important for developing nations . Inter-regional trade in the trade blocks, which warrant for duty free or concessional duty preferences, has become pertinent for the buoyancy in trade and investment. Under the present environment, no developing country can stand alone for its growth in trade and investment.

English Daily National Herald (now defunct) established in Lucknow on 9 September 1938 by Jawaharlal Nehru, who was also the paper’s first editor carried the words ‘FREEDOM IS IN PERIL, DEFEND IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT’ on its masthead. The happenings during the Modi government’s two years of rule the word “Freedom” needs to be substituted with “Democracy”!

Theoretically, the Group of Twenty (G20) meeting on 4–5 September 2016 in Hangzhou would focus on global governance; role in the global economy and gaining leverage through strategic partnerships but in reality it would be used as a forum by the USA and Obama administration to accomplish its unfinished agenda of Australian G20 summit of 2014 of bullying China and Russia.