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This week’s Congress Working Committee resolution to continue its president Sonia Gandhi for at least another year has put an end to the speculation that had begun after Rahul Gandhi’s return from his sabbatical that he might take over the reins of the party. It also implies that the party has accepted the status quo as the best under the present circumstances and is willing to bet on Sonia rather than Rahul.

Amid a less than robust outlook for the economy in 2015 in a globally turbulent situation, the Modi Government's desperate moves to kick-start growth with public and private investments, and outshine China remain as yet a non-starter.

LONDON: The European countries are gradually veering round to the consensus that they should join hands to crush the Isil by taking part in military action in Syria. While the French President Francois Hollande has ordered preparations to begin for air strikes on Islamic State militants in Syria, George Osborne, the Chancellor, also said that the Syrian crisis needs to be dealt with 'at source' in Syria by taking on the 'evil' Assad regime and Isil. Hollande also said that France would start reconnaissance flights soon with a view to launching attacks, but ruled out sending troops on the ground.

The Indian taxpayer pays a huge amount every year for the country’s defence. In the current fiscal (2015-16), our defence spending has gone up by eleven per cent and risen to $40 billion though this is nothing compared to China’s massive defence spending of $131.57 billion or three times that of India. China’s military budget is the second highest in the world after the United States.

Protractedly sick and tired of unholy nexus among military power, feudal lords and corrupt politicians plus power-wielding bureaucrats with alien links, the common people in Pakistan realise bitterly that the ‘failed state’ can’t survive without a full-fledged parliamentary democracy and a vibrant civil society. This agonising but growing reality is inexplicably ignored by political analysts who are obsessed with issues like Kashmir dispute and Indo-Pak border disturbances, which have a partial link with international arms trade.

BHOPAL: Bhopal will be the host for the biggest international conference beginning from September 10. The conference is Vishwa Hindi Sammelan. It is for the first time that Bhopal will welcome about 2,000 foreign guests, who will be in the city for more than four days beginning from September 10.

The Union Government in the Ministry of Law and Justice has taken up a proposal to amend the Court Fees Act to provide for raising the revenue for the services tendered in corporate dispute resolutions in the Supreme Court of India. This follows recommendations of the Standing Committee of Parliament on Law and Justice.

When the likes of business barons such as R V Kanoria, Ranjan Bharti Mittal, Y K Modi, Sidharth Birla, Harshavardhan Neotia, Jyotsna Suri and Puneet Dalmia share their wonderful experience of doing business in West Bengal with fellow members of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry at a West Bengal government investment road show in Delhi, those who have been going by the old perception of a political and industrial strife-torn state leading fight of capital are naturally in for a highly pleasant surprise. For a change, it was the business community, mostly from outside the state who ventured big investment in West Bengal, batting for the state before other fence-sitting investors. No state industrial investment road show in the country has witnessed is known to have witnessed such a positive response from entrepreneurs doing business in a state.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.”

The certificate given by the RSS to the Narendra Modi government that it is moving in the “right direction” has come in the nick of time for the BJP.