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With the Lok Sabha elections only 15 months away, the questions are already being asked whether the Congress will again be able to outclass the Akali-BJP alliance in the 2014 poll. The party had won eight seats in 2009, while Akali Dal’s tally was four.

BHOPAL: Bhopal observed the 28th anniversary of the gas disaster on December 3.

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan performed an extraordinary feat on November 29. On that day, he completed seven years in office. Chauhan happens to be the first non-Congress Chief Minister of the State to remain in office for such a long period. Earlier, Kailash Joshi, VK Sakhlecha, Sunderlal Patwa, Uma Bharati and Babulal Gaur of the Jana Sangh (and BJP) served as chief ministers of the state but none of them could complete their term.

The bugle for poll 2014 has been sounded but before that government’s welfare policies, particularly UPA’s direct cash transfer (DCT) plan, will be tested in ten states going to polls in 2013.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The more things change, the more they remain the same in the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), which is in the throes of an agonising reconstitution process.

In the long term, Ms Mamata Banerjee’s stonewalling of the proposed Teesta water sharing accord may hurt India far more than Bangladesh.

They may have formed the world’s most powerful financial forum, G 20, but how effective is their writ to discipline global banks and financial institutions? Hardly much. After the Bank of England, apparently under pressure from its large banks and financial institutions, sounded the impracticability of the Basel III norms at a recent meeting of world central bankers in the US, it is now the turn of the US Federal Reserve to officially postpone the Basel III implementation schedule, albeit indefinitely, starting 1st January, 2013, presumably at the behest of its global banks as well as smaller community banks.

The month of November 2012 will go down in history as one which holds up a mirror to how India, the so-called secular democratic republic, responds as a nation to ‘super death events.’

All is well that ends well, now that the Parliament is likely to function after the government has agreed for voting on the FDI in retail. That offer came because the government had successfully shepherded its friends and allies to support if there was a vote. The UPA needs both the BSP and the SP safely across the halfway mark at 273. But the challenge came from the DMK, its ally. Though the government will not fall if it loses a discussion-and-vote in Parliament, it will certainly be an embarrassment.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is providing $48 million to help goods move more smoothly in and out of Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, by overhauling time-consuming, costly, and often opaque customs procedures that are inhibiting intraregional trade.