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Mr. Narendra Modi’s lust for Chinese investment is not new or sudden. Futurists recall that his urge for Chinese investment sprouted when he was chief minister of Gujarat. He visited China four times to woo Chinese investment in Gujarat before he became the Prime Minister of India.

The AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa Jayaram has proved that she can politically rise from the ashes not once but many times. She has seen ups and downs in her political career. She was down in the late seventies when she left the film world and exiled herself to Hyderabad for a few years. After MGR brought her to politics in 1982, she again had a low turn when her mentor stripped her of her position as propaganda secretary and made her a personal non grata with in the party in 1986. After MGR’s death she fought for his legacy and took over the AIADMK from his wife Janaki Ramachandran. She became the chief minister in 1991 but had another low period in 1996 when she was arrested and put in jail for a few days facing several cases of corruption and disproportionate assets case. She bounced back in 2001 and ruled for a full five-year term. She was down again from 2006 but came back in 2011 with a massive majority. The crowing glory was her party’s victory in 2014 Lok Sabha elections when the AIADMK won 37 of the 39 seats.

As expected, the Trinamool Congress swept the civic body polls. The victory of the TMC was never in doubt. In fact sections of the media known for their strong antipathy for the TMC and its supremo Mamata Banerjee, predicted on the basis of pre-poll public opinion surveys, that the TMC was expected to win 104 wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. In the event, the ruling party bagged 114, ten more than predicted. In the districts, out of the remaining 91 civic bodies, the TMC captured as many as 71 and the Left Front five. Even the down-and-out Congress won four municipalities. In eleven municipalities no party got a clear majority. The BJP failed to capture any civic body. Significantly, in sharp contrast to last year’s Lok Sabha polls, the Left Front emerged as the main opposition despite its fall of vote percentage, leaving the BJP far behind.

The latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) pointing clearly on India’s severe ammunitions shortage leading to its military’s ability to defend the country not beyond 15 to 20 days against a foreign attack is rather chilling. The CAG report, presented in Parliament, also points out the failure of India’s defence manufacturing industry to maintain its production targets of high technology products and its massive and critical reliance on foreign supplies. India, from the time of Jawaharlal Nehru, has relied on foreign supplies to defend the country for reasons best known to the Congress Party which ruled the country for over five decades. India’s massive defeat at the hands of China in 1962 had little impact on India’s defence manufacturing and import policies. Things hardly changed in the last 53 years since the Indo-China war.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It is crunch time for both Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president, V. M. Sudheeran, and Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on the Janata Dal(U) issue.

The possibility of Lalu Prasad getting marginalized in Bihar politics and losing his say in ticket distribution in the wake of floating of the unified Janata Party, has prompted the Samajwadi Supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, the chief of the new proposed conglomerate, to postpone the merger. Announcing this decision senior Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav, brother of Mulayam on Sunday said that the merger of Janata Parivar will not be possible before the Bihar Assembly elections, which are scheduled to be held later this year.

BHOPAL: After Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav got relief from the High Court in the notorious Vyapam scam some important developments have come to the light. They include arrest of a highly placed official and complaints by the whistle. Blowers of the scam. The whistle-blowers have complained that they are being threatened by unknown people asking them to keep their mouth shut. Another whistle-blowers alleged that attempt was made to kill him and his family members.

A huge cloud overhanging the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, with dark forebodings for its future sedulously fostered by political rivals, hungering to take over in 2016, dramatically vanished into thin air, with the Karnataka High Court's acquittal of Ms. Jayalalithaa, former Chief Minister, of charges in the Disproportionate Assets case.

China still remains a difficult neighbour for India to tackle. Apart from border dispute, the concerns over growing trade deficit with China and resolving the water issue of trans-boundary rivers, particularly Brahmaputra, remains as a formidable challenge. To offset the huge trade imbalance, India has sought more Chinese investments. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on a six-day official tour of three East Asian countries – China, Mongolia and South Korea – from May 14 to garner investments for his ambitious Make in India programme. But apart from assurances on investments, what does he expects from China: possibly, Beijing’s nod for India’s membership in Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) without the former insisting upon its membership in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

Punjab’s downward slide under the Akali-BJP rule continues unabated. Latest example is the death of 13-year old Arshdeep Kaur and serious injuries to her mother Shinder Kaur when the minor girl’s molesters threw them out of the ruling Badal family- owned Orbit bus near Moga.