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In South Asia, Bangladesh despite its problems with Islamic terrorism, is attracting major foreign investments for its infrastructure development.

Former Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel’s resignation should not surprise anyone. It has become clear for sometime that she is losing grip over the administration. Broadly, there are three reasons for her resignation. Firstly, Patel’s resignation has shaken the government; secondly, arrest of Hardik Patel on charge of “treason” demonstrated that the government lacked discretion and thirdly, her response to Una incident, where Dalits men were publicly flogged by cow vigilantes, was lackluster.

While powerful sections of the political class in the Indian Union and powerful mass media is trying to whip up the demand for taking stern action against Islamic tele-evangelist Zakir Naik, the government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh has gone ahead and banned Peace TV Bangla, the Bangla language channel in Zakir Naik's Peace TV stable.

Even Indira Gandhi, the so called autocratic face of Emergency and the Indian polity, did not dare to implicate entire member of a family for the “anti-national” activity of one particular member of that family. Though Emergency was despised and maligned as draconian as the rulers perpetrated barbarism, it however maintained restrained in selecting its victims.

Britain’s most reliable and important bilateral relationship has been with America. The US administration cannot think of an EU without the UK. Obviously close aides of US president, Barack Obama, and think-tanks of USA ruling establishment, have initiated a serious exercise to get the political establishment of UK to persuade the Britons to rescind Brexit. This task has assumed importance as Obama wants to burnish his legacy before his presidency ends in January 2017.

New tensions have emerged in relations between the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) at the Centre and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal.

It is not the compulsion of the politics of the social justice that forced image conscious Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar, to announce capital punishment for those engaged in sale and manufacture of illicit liquor and stiff penalties in case of deaths of consumers or grievous injury. Nor was it about mustering courage to snub his senior partner, the RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, on his suggestion to climb down on the prohibition issue at a Grand Alliance meeting.

Never before passenger amenities on Indian Railways were so bad as presently. The NDA Government in its over enthusiasm to bring massive investments (loans) for bullet trains, semi high-speed trains and high speed corridors, has neglected passenger amenities in punctuality, cleanliness, bed rolls for air conditioned classes, catering services, serving unhygienic, substandard and under weight foods, dependence on private food mafia, provision of used bed rolls in repackaged and sealed cover to camouflage gullible rail users that such bed linens are freshly washed. Rampant sales of unhygienic and beautifully packaged spurious bottled water in total connivance and collusion of officials from top to bottom by not allowing sales of railways own produced hygienically packaged pure bottled drinking water.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The simmering crisis in the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) has deepened with prominent UDF constituent, Kerala Congress(Mani), deciding, in principle, to sit as a separate block in the State Assembly.

So Hillary is all poised to enter 1600, Pennsylvania Avenue after her presidential nomination from the Democrats this week. The million-dollar question is how close is she on winning the presidency? The Clinton supporters not only in the US but also elsewhere including India think that it is already in her bag.