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Dalai Lama’s proposed visit to Arunachal Pradesh next year has expectedly raised heckles of China which has remained a sworn enemy of the tallest Buddhist leader ever since he sought refuse in India in 1959.

Whatever may be the truth about the escape of eight SIMI suspects of terrorism and ultimately their killing in a claimed encounter near Bhopal, one thing has become clear that the Narendra Modi government and its patron-in-chief RSS along with its different outfits are bent upon to exploit each and every incident to push through their agenda of communal polarization and branding the entire spectrum of opposition as anti-national.

What is common between the Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and Tamil Nadu former Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin? They are all waiting to succeed their illustrious parents.

Development expenditure of Indian Railways in each financial year is funded through annual plan, as announced in the Budget, through three sources, Gross Budgetary Support (GBS), Internal Generation of Revenue from freight and passenger traffic and Extra Budgetary Resources (EBR). Inadequacy of GBS and shortfalls in internal resource generation led Indian Railways to shift focus to EBR, for which Indian Railways Finance Corporation (IRFC) was set up in December 1986, which has raised cumulative funding to the Railways of over Rs. 1.50 lakh crore till the financial year 2015-16. In the current financial year 2016-17, IRFC has been given the target of mobilizing Rs.40,985 crore. As of now, Indian Railways have Rs.1.42 lakh crore of assets mostly rolling stocks, which have been leased by IRFC.

Once again the Christian organizations and the saffron brigade are standing face to face. But unlike the past, it is not the question of conversion of the adivasis; instead, it is the well designed move to take away the land rights of the tribals by amending the century-old Santhal and Chotanagpur Tenancy Acts, which protect their interest and ensures that they are not evicted from their lands.

The year 2016 will go down as a high-water-mark in history as Homo sapiens have at long last found a way out from the morass of inaction to lift themselves with a spark of hope for a better standard of life for all in their interminable struggle to preserve planetary balance. Signatories to the Paris accord of late 2015 undertook to limit global warming to well below 2 degree Celsius.

BHOPAL: In the midst of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan launching a blistering attack on opposition by saying that 'shame on those who are shedding tears for terrorists', doubts have been expressed about the circumstances in which 8 alleged terrorists escaped from the prison and also about the genuineness of the encounter in which all the 8 were killed.

BHOPAL: A series of communal incidents in Madhya Pradesh has raised the question about the security of Muslims. In all these incidents Muslims were the main targets.

Traditionally, byelections have mostly gone in favour of the ruling party in Tamil Nadu but the November 19 byelections for three seats in the State Assembly, with AIADMK Chief Minister Jayalalithaa still in hospital, have raised undue hopes for rival DMK to make crucial gains.

The summit declaration made by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 15 is taking concrete shape in the energy sector with every passing day and that is a strong indication of the India-Russia Energy bridge which both the leaders mentioned during the summit for bolstering energy security of India in the coming years. ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of the ONGC, has just completed the acquisition of additional eleven per cent equity stake in Russia’s Vankor oil fields taking its total stake to 26 per cent. The company signed a deal with the Rosneft Oil Company of Russia on October 28 for this latest acquisition at a cost of US$ 930 million.OVL which had previously bought 15 per cent stake in Vankor from Rosneft for US$1.288 billion, will get 7.3 million tones of oil equivalent from this total of 26 per cent stake. The Vankor oil fields are in East Siberia.