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History has repeated itself again in Jharkhand. With the withdrawal of support to Munda government by Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, political instability has raised its head again and the State Governor is busy in resolving the crisis. He has got three options before him. Firstly, he can dissolve the Assembly and ask Election Commission to hold fresh elections for a new Assembly. Secondly, he can allow the formation of a new government with new political combinations. Finally, he can suspend the Assembly and give enough time to the political parties to seek new alliance for the government formation.

When an ailing, cancer-stricken Hugo Chavez, the 58-year-old Venezuelan presidential incumbent, was returned to power by the South American country’s masses for a record fourth time on October 7, 2012, the course of history was forever changed.

In a “business as usual” fashion, the UPA Government’s pre-budget discussions, now on, are mainly designed to keep up pretentions that this time-honoured consultative process would have great relevance for the budget strategy in 2013-14. Faithfully, agriculturists are called first for the Finance Minister to have the benefit of their wisdom, followed by labour leaders and next, as a concession lately, to the social sector activists.

Both the union finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India are waking up to the burden of gold imports on the Indian economy. After showing a little dip in gold imports, this is rising alarmingly once again. The total gold imports last year went up to $56 billion, up from over $40 billion in the previous year. This year so far, between April and September, gold imports notched up to over $20 billion. The reason why the government, as well as the RBI, are suddenly more active on gold imports is that the trade deficit of the country is rising alarmingly high and India could just as well face problems in meeting the external obligations.

After the expected outpouring of anguish and anger over the Delhi gang rape when demands for condemning the criminals to death were routinely made and Anna Hazare even called for hanging the rapists in public, there has been a restoration of a measure of sanity.

This column had, a month ago, referred to the state of health of the Punjab Congress and the Akali-BJP alliance. The context of the write-up was 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The write-up, however, had discussed the state of health of only the Congress. This week the column will deal with the state of Akali Dal and BJP and the present relations between the two ruling partners as also about their likely future relations.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: CPI(M) stalwart VS Achuthanandan is at again. After a brief lull, VS and the official wing of the State CPI(M) led by Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan are back on the confrontation course.

LUCKNOW: Sidelined by his own party, veteran Congress leader ND Tewari is helping Samajwadi Party and its leadership through his stay in Lucknow these days.