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Indian Science Congress has finally made it to the news, albeit for all the wrong reasons. One of the oldest scientific conferences of the country has suddenly found itself under a lot of limelight once it showed a few signs of madness as some of the ungrounded claims regarding the ‘golden ancestry’ of India were made in the conference. While the marginal news was churned up, exaggerated and presented by the media with the phony air of novelty, the truth remains that the claim about a golden mythological past has always lurked under the public consciousness. Through the recent events, it is also evident, that familiar claim suddenly seems to be peeking into popular awareness more often these days. When the newly elected prime minister declared the ancient India’s proficiency in Plastic surgery by giving an example from the mythic stories, it becomes obvious that the covert penchant for the non-existent golden history is making its way into the mainstream, refusing to be thwarted and ridiculed.

Few would begrudge or dispute the deserved selection of the RBI Governor Dr. Raghuram G Rajan as “Governor of the Year” in the Central Banking Journal Awards for 2015 for the exceptional and unconventional leadership he displayed in stemming the rupee’s slide and balance of payments crisis India faced in August 2013, following the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s peremptory remarks on tapering the US unorthodox monetary accommodation. Aside from the encomium lavished on the RBI Chief, what is more important to note is that he lost little time in publicly hailing the recent decision of the Government to accord freedom to public sector banks (PSBs) to function autonomously and “without fear or favour” as a “landmark” one.

What is the difference between greedy, short-sighted private promoters of public companies and the government if the latter too thinks that it could gobble up shareholders’ funds in state-controlled enterprises (PSUs) held in the form of general reserves at will? Little, to be honest. Because, both are dishonest acts as they could put such cash-stripped companies to great financial risk choking their growth and threatening their survival. Suffice it to say that the world over most companies – private or public – turned sick and failed for want of adequate cash reserves to fund expansion, diversification and in-time technology upgradation. In good times, their owners have siphoned out the reserves for their personal or group gains by forcing fat dividends, bonus issues and cheaply lending out to rescue sick sister concerns or acquiring assets for another group firm or firms. Such large transfer of corporate funds to fill promoters’ pockets may not be entirely illegal, but it is hardly ethical and speaks volume of poor corporate governance.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Who is going to be the new State secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI)? That is the question uppermost in the minds of not only C PI activists but also among other left parties.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have scaled another height in trying to persuade the world turn to India as the land of vibrancy for investors to put their money and skills in, and share in a prosperous future. So much exuberance had been built into the “Vibrant Gujarat Summit” in the New Year, with invited global leaders, that his Government’s performance would now be critically judged in relation to the huge expectations raised.

If there’s one thing that the 102nd Indian Science Congress, held in Mumbai, will be remembered for, it’s the outrageous claims made at it about the achievements of science in ancient India, including the assertion that Indians between 7000 and 6000 BC knew how to make airplanes that could undertake “interplanetary travel”, and fly backwards and sideways, as well as forwards!

The West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee has every reason to feel ebullient and she correctly described Bengal Global Business Summit 2015 as “Fata-Fati” (fantastic in Bengli). At the summit the state received an windfall of investment proposals worth Rs 2,43 lakh crore on the final day as against its target of Rs 3 lakh crores. However, many of these investments have not yet got approval from the respective boards of private companies and public sector units. A sizeable Rs 78,700 crore belongs to the Centre.

BHOPAL: In Madhya Pradesh, four important Municipal Corporations are going to the polls later this month. They are: Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur and Chhindwara. All the political parties have completed the work of allotment of tickets to the aspirants.

Till last year, Narendra Modi’s disadvantage was his anti-minority reputation. That he has been largely able to refurbish his image in this respect is evident from Congress M.P. Shashi Tharoor’s commendation for the prime minister’s metamorphosis from being a “hate figure to an avatar of modernity and progress”.

While walking out in the morning have you seen waste water spilling out from residences onto the locality roads? Or dirty water drained down in the open through pipelines from uppers floors? Residents, who are responsible for such outpourings, think that the locality roads are nobody’s property, hence there is no need to keep them clean. They argue the locality roads can be used as open yards for depositing the sludge, and why not?