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Is Delhi moving towards a constitutional crisis even as the ugly spat between the chief minister Kejriwal and Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung intensifies? No doubt this is not the first time the differences between the governors and the chief ministers has emerged. During Indira Gandhi’s regime some Governors were called the agents of the Centre when they recommended President’s rule bowing to her wishes. It was after the judiciary stepped in that the arbitrary use of Article 356 was curtailed.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Metro Man E. Sreedharan has, once again, managed to outsmart his opponents who tried their level best to sideline him and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) from the light metro projects in Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode in Kerala.

The adivasis of Jharkhand are on the war path protesting against the expansion of the city on the plea of creation of a Smart City, the new Capital City of Jharkhand. The project Greater Ranchi has got a fresh lease of life under the new BJP government led by Raghubar Das. The tribals feared yet another phase of displacement. Apprehending that the ambitious project would rob them off their prized land, roamed around the streets of Ranchi armed with traditional weapons, farm tools and shouting slogans against the government.

A little highlighted fact during the recent visit of the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi to China is the intensified cooperation in non-fossil-fuel sources that New Delhi sought from the Middle Kingdom and succeeded in securing. Academic scholars contend that 2014 was the second year in a row in which China added more generating capacity from non-fossil-fuel sources than from fossil-fuel ones. China augmented its ability to generate electricity from fossil fuels by 45 gigawatts to reach a total of 916 gigawatts. At the same time, it also enhanced its capacity to produce electricity from non-fossil-fuel sources by 56 gigawatts, achieving a total of 444 gigawatts in which wind, water, and solar power plants added 51 gigawatts of generating capacity.

Barely two weeks after a major earthquake which killed more than 8,000 people, Nepal suffered a powerful aftershock, adding to its misery and killing over 100 people. More than 3.5 million people are still in need of food assistance; 479,000 houses have been destroyed and 263,000 damaged; and only five percent of the $415 million aid Nepal needs has reached it. Given the extensive destruction and caving in of hill roads, it has been near-impossible to reach relief material to those in dire need.

Normally, the murder of five persons belonging to the one family of scheduled-caste origin would create some furore in the land of West Bengal with politicians across the board and media competing in their solidarity with the deceased among the downtrodden. High-caste ‘progressives’ of various hues would have also competed to lead the outrage, lest their ‘traditional’ self-appointed spokesperson role come under any threat. However, that wasn’t the case when three men and two women died in the Naoda village near Juranpur of Nadia district, West Bengal. The murderers, in this case, were Muslims. In some twisted calculus that goes by the name of secularism and maintenance of communal harmony, the governing party of West Bengal and the principal opposition party have had nothing to say about the matter. Major Bengali media organisations, with a few honourable exceptions, have not reported the matter at all. This conspiracy of silence has a predictable past.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi cast himself a new wonder of the world by the electoral heights he scaled at home in May 2014 Lok Sabha polls and by the frenetic pace of his travels over a year, to assert India’s rising stature with its fast-growing economy, reckoned as one of key drivers of global growth. He scored huge gains in the matter of foreign capital financing for long-term development.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Congress in Kerala has been jolted by two recent developments: plain-speaking by senior Congress leader, A. K. Antony and fresh eruption of group war in the party in its wake.

CHANDIGARH: Haryana’s six-month-old Khattar-led BJP government is going to face testing times. Last week’s two developments are a pointer. The first development is the agitation launched by the Congress against the Khattar regime making political vendetta and government’s “failures” as its core issues. The second development is saffronising of education.

With the Congress now positioning itself on the “left of Karl Marx”, as finance minister Arun Jaitley has said, and its adherence to “semi-socialist” policies being confirmed by the Congress M.P., Kamal Nath, the party can be said to have returned to its original path of Nehruvian socialism.