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BHOPAL: The expansion of ministry by the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was marked by a bitter controversy. Three factors were responsible for the controversy. First dropping of two senior ministers and last minute denial of berths to some such aspirants who were sounded about their possible inclusion in the ministry. The third factor concerned the inclusion of such MLAs who have questionable background. One MLA who was sworn in, is a defector. He joined the BJP after quitting Congress to safeguard his business interests. The two senior ministers who were dropped are Babulal Gaur and Sardar Sartaj Singh. Both have been dropped because they crossed the upper age limit of 75 years fixed by the central BJP leadership.

KOLKATA: Despite some differences, progress on building an effective energy network between India and Bangladesh has been satisfactory in recent months, according to official sources.

After achieving some amount of success in annexing Assam from the Congress fold in the latest round of state assembly elections, the BJP leadership is preparing the whole hog to improve the Party’s performance in the next round of state assembly elections in 2017 the main focus of which is on Uttar Pradesh. The electoral battle in UP is crucial for both the BJP and its opponents including the Congress, Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party as UP is the largest state in the country having 403 assembly seats and 80 seats in Lok Sabha and the outcome in UP elections, will have a deep impact on the next Lok Sabha elections in 2019.

The Modi Government is currently engaged in creating more hype on its overall economic management unrelated to ground realities like lurking inflation, low investment, stunted growth and poor job creation in its first two years, apart from the severely stressed banking system.

LONDON: The leader of the Labour Party in the UK parliament, Jeremy Corbyn became the first official victim of the UK voting for Brexit. He lost a no-confidence vote among Labour MPs. The party’s parliamentarians voted 172 to 40 against Mr Corbyn’s leadership in a secret ballot on Tuesday afternoon. There were four spoilt ballots in the contest, while 13 MPs did not vote.

Is Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal chasing a pipe dream by trying to seek a referendum on full statehood for Delhi? Should Delhi have a referendum on this issue or will it open up a Pandora’s box? Whether he succeeds or not Kejriwal has indeed started a debate when he tweeted after the Great Britain’s exit from the European Union last week 'After UK referendum, Delhi will soon have a referendum on full statehood.”

The Word Trade Organization (WTO) held its sixth review of China’s trade policies and practices in Geneva on June 20 to 22. The world trade monitoring body’s conclusive message is that “the basic national conditions of China as a big developing country have not changed and will not be fundamentally changed despite its economic development achievements”. WTO further foresees the Middle Kingdom to be subject to “the challenges of onerous development tasks for a long time”. This might warm the cockles of unipolar power like the United States or other emerging economies like India, though the incontrovertible fact is that China has of late begun throwing its weight and its growing clout leveraging both its soft and hard power pitch, much to the consternation of many peace-loving nations across the world.

Experts fear that the cost of power generation from the six nuclear reactors to be set up in Andhra Pradesh by Westinghouse Electric (US), a major outcome of the recent talks held between US President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi, would be prohibitively high.

Indian Railways annual budgeting and accounting of its receipts and expenditure, hitherto known as a separate Railway Budget, will form part of the General Budget of the Union of India from 2017-18, as is learnt from the official sources in the Ministry of Railways, although a formal official announcement is yet to be made. This follows recommendations of Debroy Committee Report on restructuring of Indian Railways in 2015 and the latest advice by the NITI Ayog to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) that the existing system of a separate Rail Budget be scrapped and made part of the General Budget of the Union.

Nepal politicians have criticised Canada over the recent death in a suicide bombing of 14 Gorkha soldiers in Kabul, alleging ‘negligence’.