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Two grand old men heading two regional parties – one in the north and one in the south – may be bidding for their one last chance in the ensuing Assembly polls to Tamil Nadu (M. Karunanidhi of the DMK) and Punjab (Prakash Singh Badal of the Shiromani Akali Dal.) While Karunanidhi’s fate will be decided in May, Badal will be facing the polls early next year.

The recent Bihar assembly elections have tought us one important lesson, that is one cannot ignore the aspirations of rural India, where majority of the country's population lives. India has to shine for all and economic growth has to become more inclusive. Politicians can no longer ignore this reality. This of course has several challenges.

Starvation deaths continue among North Bengal tea plantations labourers, even as State and Central governments remain engaged in a bitter blame game. At least one media report reveals how deep-rooted the problem is and how many workers have died between 2000 and 2015 - its estimates the death toll at 1,400 and counting!

LUCKNOW: BSP supremo Mayawati has launched an aggressive campaign to retain her Dalit vote bank and make inroads into upper-caste and Muslims constituencies to capture power through Mission 2017. Mayawati has been chief minister thrice and was voted out of power in 2012 by Samajwadi Party.

Predictably, RBI has left the key lending rates (repo) and liquidity ratio (CRR) unchanged on February 2 , amid global headwinds and rising trend in CPI, but suggests structural reforms and 'controlling spending' in the forthcoming Budget could create more space for the policy to support growth in the coming year.

The mantra of maintaining equidistance from the Congress and the BJP has played well for the Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. He gets a certification of appreciation from the NDA government at the Centre for urban development. Another feather is on his cap as Bhubaneswar becomes the number one choice for development of Smart City under an ambitious flagship programme mooted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.

The politics of vengeance has been the key factor in the Modi government denying the smart cities to the eastern Indian states. Except Bhubaneswar, Odisha’s capital, no city from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand or Bengal has made it to the smart list. Last year, when the names of the cities for including in the list of the smart cities were being finalized Bihar government was given the impression that at least three of its cities - Bhagalpur, Biharsharif and Muzaffarpur - are among the 97 shortlisted and would be upgraded. But none made it to the first list of 20 released by the Union minister Venkaiah Naidu.

The thirteen months of Haryana’s first ever BJP ministry have been marked by unsavoury controversies. The most worrisome among them are some of the eligibility conditions imposed for contesting the recently concluded Panchayat Raj Institutions elections and launching of cases against some television actor-comedians. Coming in the wake of the divisive utterances of some BJP leaders, party MPs and sadhvis that have communally polarized India, such conditions are symptoms of the Emergency period’s mindset. The matter assumes greater concern as these developments have taken place in the backdrop of the instances of intolerance which recently made some eminent writers, authors, film personalities and artistes to return their coveted national awards.

Despite recent moves by opposition parties in West Bengal - the Congress, the Left Front and the BJP - to work up a vigorous pre-election campaign, there is no doubt that the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) is best placed to win a second term in the state Assembly.

The rapid expansion of e-commerce, foreign brand retail, IT and electronics start-ups, e-transaction portals, financial inclusion, RuPay bankcards and mobile phone business in India are all okay. But, they alone can’t ride India’s real growth story for long. Because, India’s real economy is languishing. The country’s per capita cell phone usage or the total annual cell phone sales statistics have little connect with the country’s per capita consumption of steel, non-ferrous metals, plastics, cement, energy of all sorts, live alone with other major industrial products and the state of its infrastructure, healthcare and education. Going by official statistics, India’s real economy seems to have taken a back seat, though not sinking as yet.