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At a time when India’s external vulnerabilities to global headwinds remain none too encouraging, the Narendra Modi Government has unveiled its five-year Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) from April 1, 2015 with a lofty goal to push the country’s exports of goods and services from $ 465.9 billion in 2013-14 to roughly $ 900 billion by 2019-20. Wisely, the government has not factored in the patchy performance of 2014-15, the fiscal year just past, because against the merchandise export target of $ 340 billion, exports during the eleven months till February 2015 fetched $ 286 billion, leaving the attainment of target in a single month anywhere even half the $54 billion.

Where is the Aam Aadmi Party heading now that the fight is in the open for all to see? While the Delhi chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal might emerge the winner with the majority choosing to remain with him mainly because the AAP is in power, it is clear that all is not well in the young party. Kejriwal has certainly lost the halo around him now and has emerged as a leader who is not able to quell the dissatisfaction within the party or keep the flock together. The opposition parties including the BJP and the Congress are watching the “tamasha” with glee. After all he sought votes on the slogan “paanch saal Kejrwial.” He is unable to sustain even for five months.

The Narendra Modi Government has entered the new fiscal year (2015-16) with a relatively poor economic outturn in its first ten months of trumpeted governance, which makes the desired growth rebound even more challenging, in the midst of domestic, global and geo-strategic uncertainties.

NEW DELHI: The zero-fuel aeroplane Solar Impulse-2 is perhaps the brightest example as to how solar power can best be harnessed for societal welfare. This is only applied quality science, which Indian entrepreneurs and policy makers have long forgotten, rather selfishly.

KOLKATA: With only days left for the first round of civic polls, it is natural that the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the BJP should be hit hard by unruly dissidence. The scramble to secure nominations in these two parties has been fierce in 2015.

Allotment of captive coal mines to the public and private sector producers of power, coal and cement is good news, but the coal and lignite industry will remain overwhelmingly under the control of India’s established public sector producers benchmarking the mining practices, technology use, output, quality and prices. The captive coal mines being auctioned to industry will add value to their owners if they can match or improve upon the ratios fixed by the public sector manufacturers. Suffice it to say that the growth requirement of India’s eight core sector industries in the next 10 years put the highest pressure on coal production. Coal directly feeds at least four core activities – electricity generation and production of steel, cement and fertiliser. The government’s select captive privatization of the coal sector may ease the supply of coal to some extent, but industry will still very largely depend on public sector miners of coal and lignite.

LUCKNOW: Political parties and Muslim organizations are mounting pressure on Akhilesh Yadav government to file appeal in high court against CBI court verdict on Hasimpura incidents. The silence of Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav and his chief minister son Akhilesh Yadav on Hasimpura verdict has baffled Muslim organizations.

Madhya Pradesh Congress, which was alleged to be a very passive opposition for long, now has turned into an active opposition. The strong involvement of Satyadev Katare in the state assembly as leader of opposition and that of Digvijay Singh, former chief minister, has put the BJP government in trouble. Congress MLAs protested inside the MP assembly even though it was adjourned sine die after one-day session. They protested day and night for about 72 hours and put up a hunger strike on the last day. Congress MLAs demanded discussion in MP assembly on farmers’ issues. The leader of opposition put forth the demand for two-day assembly session instead of just one day for discussions on farmers’ plight in the wake of unseasonal rains and hailstorm just before harvest. Opposition has alleged that the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government is not interested to either discuss the farmers’ problems, nor is doing anything worthwhile about it. This is the very first event of its kind in any assembly in the country.

Who is responsible for the soaring debts of Greece and the accentuating economic crisis the burden of which has been passed on to the underprivileged by the successive ruling coalitions in Athens? The myths about Greece debts in particular and the European debts in general, have prevailed so long due to the propaganda of the big media and the elites of the Euro-zone that the general opinion was that the Greece’s common masses are trying to destroy the stability of Eurozone by refusing to abide by the austerity programme worked by the troika of International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the European Central Bank.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Caught between a rock and a hard place. That is the unenviable fate which has befallen Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.