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A lot is being said about ‘independence of the Judiciary’. The members of the Executive haven’t shown how poking their nose into judicial appointments via the National Judicial Appointments Commission increases this independence, but even they say they respect it.

CHANDIGARH: To repeat Fortune senior editor Philip Elmer-DeWitt: “Some people make headlines while others make history”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week set a record by making both. He described lynching of Dadri’s Mohammed Akhlaq over rumours of beef eating and scrapping of Pakistani artiste Ghulam Ali’s concert in Mumbai and Pune as “saddening and unfortunate” incidents.

In two week, the final count of votes in the Bihar assembly elections will blow off the lid over the cauldron simmering an internal crisis. It will reshape politics with new equations between the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Sangh Parivar the mentor of the Bharatiya Janata Party. It will entail quick responses from the prime Minister with aggressive actions to assert his authority if he succeeds in Bihar or otherwise launch more offensive to retain the centre of power in his hands.

A new age of democracy as envisaged under Arab Spring did not descend in the West Asia, instead the two super powers-Russia and USA- are confronting each other on the issue of fighting the common enemy ISIS and al-Nusra ravaging Syria. With USA continuing to patronize and arm the rebel groups opposed to President Bashar al-Assad and the Russian forces taking on the ISIS, Syria is on the brink of worst form of civil war.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s furious electioneering in Bihar has shown how desperate he is to bolster a sagging image of his Government, within eighteen months of assuming supreme power at the Centre, and to secure a win to put his BJP firmly in power in one more state. He looks for a comfortable victory as an endorsement of his style of governance which should also silence his critics.

After the completion of the first two phases of the Bihar polls, the indications are that the BJP’s earlier hopes of piping the “secular” combination at the post will not be fulfilled. What is worse for the party is the growing belief that the end result may not even be a photo-finish. Instead, the chances are that the Janata Dal (United)-Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-Congress trio will have the last laugh.

KOLKATA: There has been little progress in the execution of crucial infrastructure projects in the Northeast/Eastern states, mainly because of bureaucratic wrangles and confusion in India, for all the hyped up official rhetoric and promises.

Before the first round of poll in Bihar, it appeared the BJP is ahead of the grand alliance led by Nitish-Lalu combine. When arch enemies Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad joined hands and roped in Congress to stop the BJP from making inroads in Bihar, few expected the shaky Grand Alliance to last for long; soon cracks developed in the alliance. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development plank appeared to be working. BJP leaders argued that Nitish-Lalu combine would not work on the ground. Lalu’s Yadav votes will never be transferred to Nitish who exiled the community (Yadavs) to political wilderness for the decades. They also believed that Nitish’s EBC and Mahadalit voters, who had drifted in significant numbers to the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, will ever return to CM.

Tens of thousands of Hindu Nepalis are in a pensive state as they are forced to observe their greatest socio-religious festival. Dashain, a fortnight-long celebration that began on 13 October amidst a pervasive economic crisis, thanks to the obstinacy of majority of law-makers to grant full freedom to the Madhesis and Tharus who dwell in the plains. The new Constitution – apparently progressive – denies full citizenship to any Indian married to a Nepali. Such spouses will be barred from higher posts in government jobs. Although the two nationalities account for 50 per cent of 27 million population of Nepal, they shall elect 65 representatives to the parliament while Pahadi (Hill) community will chose 100 members to the law-making body. The demand for a Madhesi province too has been shot down. The constituency delimitation is asymptotical towards the Madhesis. Furthermore, the constituency delimitation is asymptotical towards the Madhesis.

The verdict of the Special CBI court came as a shattering blow to general belief in integrity and morality of political institutions, administrative machinery, rule of law and investigations in misdeeds and violation of law as well as in honesty of office holders. The court held that investigating officer of CBI fabricated evidence in the case to falsely implicate the upright and honest civil servant Shyamal Ghosh and three others in allocation of extra spectrum in 2 G category in 2002. Ghosh was telecom secretary then and Pramod Mahajan was the minister for telecoms.