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KOLKATA: The time has come for West Bengal politicians regardless of party affiliations, to stop plumbing the depths of low, vulgar behaviour.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Government again betrayed its lack of respect for the judiciary and the State Election Commission with its latest stance on the conduct of the local bodies elections.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has scuttled the second phase of prison reforms involving a cost of Rs.13, 962.60 crores, maintaining that the States and Union Territories have been awarded 10 per cent higher sums from the Central divisible pool of resources by the Fourteenth Finance Commission from the existing 32 per cent to 42 per cent. According to the MHA, enhanced devolution provides enough space to the States and Union Territories to fund prison reform on their own. The 14th Finance Commission has rejected the MHA proposal containing inputs from all States and Union Territories on account of the fact that States and Union Territories have got higher allocation enabling them to provide for second phase of prison modernization and there was no need for the Central Government to continue with such reforms.

Two events made media headlines last week. One was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of Rs.1.25 lakh crore package for Bihar. The other was the midnight arrest of five students of the Pune’s 54 year-old world-renowned Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) whose students have been on strike protesting against the appointment of RSS man Gajendra Chauhan as Institute’s Chairman.

LUCKNOW: The recent protest by Congress Party against the alleged misrule of Akhilesh Yadav government has boosted the morale of rank and file all over the state. Never before in recent years, this city erstwhile nawabs witnessed massive turn out at the protest by Congress Party which shows the general mood of the party against Akhilesh Yadav government.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CPI(M) Central Committee’s latest directive to its state units constitutes a big victory for party patriarch, V. S. Achuthanandan.

The onion trade has, once again, taken the government for a ride. The trade was allowed to export well over a million tones of onion through 2014-15 and the first quarter of this financial year. The government, as usual, ignored the production and availability of onion and met forecast of a weak monsoon in May. The Mumbai-market controlled onion trade did what it had been doing for decades – export cheaply during the season and import at high cost at the season-end to maximize profit on both. Few governments, not even the one led by the late Indira Gandhi, had the political courage and will to control, if not stop altogether, onion export and import to stabilize the trade for the benefit of the common man. High onion and potato prices had caused election downfall of ruling parties.

Narendra Modi may have moved on politically from the traumatic events of 2002, but he is seemingly unable to forget the two months of the riots although he dismissed them at the time as “stray incidents” in a letter to the President of India. His targeting, therefore, of those whose conduct at the time displeased him can be seen as a way of settling scores.

While the Indian Union and Pakistan celebrated the transfer of power from London to New Delhi and Islamabad (something that goes by the name independence in these parts of the world), a Twitter hashtag made news on 15th of August 2015. #StopHindiImposition was trending among the all India top 5. This was a well-coordinated campaign from citizens who wanted to bring their demands for linguistic equality to be brought into public notice. Such an act, ‘especially’ on 15th August was termed by some as being ‘anti-national’. From when did asking for linguistic equality and fighting against non-consensual imposition of something become an anti-national act – unless being patriotic and being for Hindi imposition are the same? It is precisely this right to protest unilateral impositions, among other things, that were supposed to have been achieved on 15th August 1947, or so we were made to believe.

There have been disquieting reports from Bihar that a wedge is developing in the Grand Secular Alliance with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the RJD Chief Lalu Prasad Yadav differing on many issues. If the reported wedge further develops, both Nitish and Lalu are bound to be doomed with the forerunner in the coming assembly election – the BJP – gaining the upper hand. Sources close to Nitish and Lalu, however, deny that there is a wedge and the reports to that effect have been circulated to mislead the people.