View Articles

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Will AICC vice-president, Rahul Gandhi, assert his authority to have his action plan for the Congress in Kerala implemented? That is the question uppermost in the minds of Congress cadres and leaders in the State.

The Dalai Lame is free to go anywhere, says the BJP, on the eve of his visit to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.

A Tata may disagree, today’s Rs. 7,00,000-crore Tata business empire, directly employing around 6,50,000 people, was largely built and expanded by non-Tata manager-entrepreneurs such as Sumant Moolgaokar (TELCO), Darbari Seth (Tata Chemicals and Tata Beverages), Xerxes Desai (Titan Industries), Subramaniam Ramadorai (TCS), Ajit Kerkar (Indian Hotels) and Russi Mody (Tata Steel). Interestingly, they all worked with JRD Tata, who accorded them full freedom and authority to run their enterprises as their own companies. Their entrepreneurship talents were spotted early by JRD.

Organizing investment summit has become a regular programme to woo investors. It started with Vibrant Gujarat. It spilled over to half a dozen states to project their states as attractive investment destinations. West Bengal organized two investment summits and the third one is on the way in January 2017.

The infighting in the Samajwadi Party with each faction pulling its way and party patriarch, Mulayam Singh Yadav changing his decisions each day, indicates that the party is deeply divided. In this situation, the SP is bound to get big jolt in the next year’s assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.

The NDA Government’s regional connectivity scheme (RCS) under which airline tickets will cost a maximum of Rs 2500 for an hour’s flight in undeveloped or underdeveloped areas of the country has received a big push by foreign airlines. But, as expected, India’s own domestic private sector carriers are out to oppose the laudable scheme for their own selfish motive. It is time the Government takes a decisive step to rein in the greedy and unresponsive airlines who refuse to think beyond themselves.

On October 18, Irom Sharmila Chanu finally took the plunge into electoral politics by announcing the formation of the People’s Resurgence and Justice Alliance (PRJA) at Hall No.1 of the Imphal Press Club in the presence of media persons, supporters and some random wanderers like me. In the parliamentary and assembly political space dominated by Congress and a rising BJP (by inducing defections in the Congress), two mainland origin parties, there exists a space for a Manipur centric party that puts Manipur’s interest first and not the diktats of a distant high-command.

LUCKNOW: The ongoing ‘Mahabharat’ in Samajwadi Party has further boosted the image of chief minister Akhilesh Yadav who is seen as the person who is fighting against corruption and criminalization of politics.

The USA President Barrack Obama will leave behind the wreckage of the super power legacy and scraps of moral authority for the new incumbent besides the daunting task to salvage the national pride of being America. Already its policy of hegemony lies shattered in the rubbles of Syria. The fact of the matter is Obama has brought more discredit and bad name to the USA in Syrian crisis.

The dynastic politics in India is getting stronger and stronger with the leaders of political parties naming their family members to succeed them even as their parties have been docile to accept it. Leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Parkash Singh Badal, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, K. Chandrasekkhara Rao and Nara Chandrababu Naidu, and Farooq Abdullah, to name a few, believe in the dynastic politics. The latest to join this club is the 93-year-old DMK supremo Muthuvel Karunanidhi, who has declared his younger son M.K.Stalin as his political heir. 'From his prison days where he faced a lot of hardships, he has himself worked very hard and elevated himself systematically to the position of future president (of DMK). In that aspect, he remains my political heir apparent today,” he told in a recent magazine interview.