View Articles

It may take a decade or more to re-create a smaller residuary Andhra Pradesh, with massive funding required to build a modern capital involving acquisition of 50,000 acres or more of fertile and waste lands in and around Vijayawada. TDP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu is taking on a mighty challenge even as the Centre remains largely apathetic at present.

Barely 100 days after scoring a stunning Lok Sabha victory, the Bharatiya Janata Party has suffered its third successive—and heaviest—defeat in state Assembly byelections. Of the 33 Assembly seats where elections were held in nine states on September 13, the BJP won just 12 seats, down from 25. It suffered a rout in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Rajasthan, and sustained losses in Gujarat—the very states that had voted it overwhelmingly to national power in May.

So, the children of Babur (Babur ki aulad), as the BJP and the RSS-led Sangh parivar used to call the Muslims during the Ramjanmabhoomi agitation, are patriots, after all, as Narendra Modi has said in a recent interview. Why has the prime minister initiated this transition from M.S. Golwalkar’s characterization of Muslims as an “internal threat” to the high status of a community which is willing to live and die for India?

Following the Arab Spring that began in December 2011, the situation in West Asia and North Africa, particularly in Iraq and Syria is taking an ugly turn and has not only put Indian diplomacy to test but is also likely to pose a challenge to India’s security concerns and economic interests. The region has brought both the local and external powers in the play. The sectarian divide between the Sunnis and the Shias has aggravated the situation to question the Sykes-Picot boundaries between the existing nation states. Further the formation of the Caliphate by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is an indication that the delicate problem may not be resolved in the immediate future. Adding to India’s security concerns is the Sunni terrorist organisation, Al Qaida forming its new arm for the Indian sub-continent.

For the owners and users of passenger vehicles, the relief in recent lower natural rubber prices on a sustained basis in the last six quarters has not led to any price cut in the retail replacement tyre market. This is so as the original tyre manufacturing industry comprising a handful of units across the country is unrelenting in their spree of periodic price hikes. When owning and using any mode of personal vehicle is no longer a luxury, the automotive manufacturers—the automotive and the tyre segments remain impervious to efficient and invisible market mechanisms with the latter more so as they willfully resort to collusive behavior to keep tyre prices high. They overtly avoid passing on the benefits they might get from the government in tax cuts or a fortuitous fall in input costs as in the case of tyre to the eventual users/buyers.

KOLKATA: By-elections were held to three seats of the Assam Assembly on September 13. Apparently, it was quits for all the three contesting parties, the Congress, the BJP and the AIUDF, each winning one seat. But behind the apparent, the reality is very different. The trend is that Muslim voters in Assam are deserting the Congress and gravitating to the AIUDF. The Hindu voters are also moving away from the Congress and consolidating behind the BJP. This is true in spite of the fact that the Congress candidate won the Lakhipur seat by defeating his BJP rival by 9,172 votes.

Online lottery fraud has come to stay as a big menace to the gullible people, who are carried away by the lure of big money. They are simply not aware that without investing in lottery scheme, how can they win any lottery! It’s just not possible. Yet people fall prey to such allurements, which are in the domain of spam and phishing. State police and governments launch public awareness campaign, on regular frequencies, against such frauds. Online lottery frauds are borderless crimes, tackling which is, indeed, a very challenging task for Indian law enforcing agencies. It often comes a cropper.

Upon close observation of some of the most glaring examples of injustices to humanity, Hindi Imposition in India stands out as a peculiar one. In fact the constitution of India itself records some articles that make this imposition of Hindi official and thereby legal.

What message does by-elections in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Assam and West Bengal send? One loud and clear message is that the Modi wave is losing its momentum. Coming on the heels of setback in Uttrakhand and Bihar by-polls, last week’s by-election results in five states show a steady decline in the BJP’s rating. Congress won all the three seats in Assembly by-polls in Uttarakhand on July 25. Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar turned their once-famous rivalry into a friendship with very real benefits. Along with the Congress, they have won six of 10 assembly seats in by-elections. If these trends are any indication, BJP may face tough time in next month’s Maharashtra and Haryana elections.

The escalated row between Japan and China and deterioration in Sino-American relations activated Chinese interest in India. China and Japan are vying for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s heart to establish a political dominance in Asian politics and counter-balance each others’ foray in Asia. Had Japan not extended a big hand of support to India’s infrastructure development, it is doubted that China would have splurged investment in India.