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Much against the common perception, the Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei described the slowdown in China’s economy as a healthy process. However he said policy makers needed to manage it carefully. According to him, “slowing of China’s economic growth is a healthy process, but it is a sensitive period. The Chinese government must make accurate adjustments, keeping the economy within a predictable space while continuing to promote internal structural reforms.”

Are the excessive accommodative monetary policy on the one side and a tight monetary policy on the other side anyway delivering the desirable results to the world economy is a question that the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) righty raised? In its flagship annual publication, Trade and Development Report (TDR) released recently, the Geneva-based UN body has examined in depth a raft of interconnected challenges confronting the international monetary and financial system. They range from liquidity provisions through banking regulation to debt restructuring and long-term public financing—all germane to the development concerns of emerging economies such as India at this juncture.

BHOPAL: Full facts about VYAPAM scam are still shrouded in mystery; fresh charges of irregularities in the process of giving admission in private medical and dental colleges have been made by parents of candidates who were seeking admission into these institutions. Tests for admission in private dental and medical colleges are held by the Association of Private Dental and Medical colleges of Madhya Pradesh.

LUCKNOW: Are the political parties instigating communal riots to divert attention of people from basic issues? Why are issues such as price rise, growing unemployment and unrest among farmers due to non-payment of sugarcane arrears and disillusionment from Land Acquisition Bill not getting enough television and media coverage since the Dadri incident?

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The seat-sharing talks in both the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and the CPI(M)-headed Left Democratic Front(LDF) for the local bodies elections, scheduled for November 2 and 5 this year, present a contrasting picture. The battle is being billed as the dress rehearsal of the crucial assembly elections due in May 2016.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have received nothing afresh from President Barak Obama from his last hour-long meeting with the US president while according India’s full support to the US climate agenda. But, Pakistan Prime Minister is hoping to strike it really rich during his proposed 22nd October meeting with Mr. Obama extracting an India-Iran style civil nuclear agreement with lately a more willing America. Talks between the two governments are on. The US had earlier rejected such a plea by Pakistan after it signed a treaty on civil nuclear programme with India in 2005. Paradoxically, top US officials now want America to keep itself more deeply engaged with Pakistan despite their critical analysis of the latter’s rogue state image and go ahead with a nuclear deal. They argue that a civil nuclear agreement with Pakistan will enhance the US engagement with Pakistan to keep a closer watch on the country. Other international policy watchers, however, feel differently. They say the possible US civil nuclear engagement with Pakistan is intended to please not only Pakistan but also Saudi Arabia while preventing Pakistan from getting closer to China on nuclear cooperation. The US does not appear to be really concerned about India’s apprehensions against such a deal.

With the expanding role of electronic and social media in the affairs of the NDA Government at the Centre, the work culture in the Press Information Bureau (PIB), the prime official media for dissemination of all official information and publicity, has undergone a major shift towards counter narrative in the form of rejoinder, rebuttal and clarification from its basic tasks of dishing out developmental information. The result has been enough blank space in the media world to file negative and adversarial news, in the absence of increased developmental information, so much so that only negative sentiments are generated in the public against the Government. And PIB’s pro-active counter narrative is not helpful at all.

Never before in the electoral history of India has any state assembly attracted such a wide attention like election to the Bihar assembly this year. While even the international scholars nurse the view that this election will change the dynamics and dimension of the Indian politics, it is also claimed that it is for the first time that caste is being used in the most ruthless manner by the contending alliances; Narendra Modi led NDA and Nitish Kumar led Grand Secular Alliance.

Now Mamata’s Trinamool Congress rigs even municipal elections!

When it comes to centre-state relations, no party in India provokes New Delhi more than the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Its anti-Centre attitude often leads to pathological extremes of political intolerance.

“Kufr toota khuda khuda karke”.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has at long last broken his Sphinx-like silence. Why was he forced to speak up so late? Was it change of heart or the widespread outrage over the lynching of Dadri’s 52-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq? Or, were it the compulsions of the forthcoming Bihar assembly elections which forced him to break his 16-month-long silence? In this era of opportunistic politics, hardboiled leaders often start acting like chameleons.