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KOLKATA: The theme of this despatch is best defined by a direct quote from a retired Judge, Kolkata High Court.

The coming assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir will be first test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his stunning victory in May’s Lok Sabha elections. Will the Modi wave, that helped the BJP get single-party majority in the Lok Sabha, remain intact till October/November when the elections in the three states are scheduled to be held? If so, the BJP is sure to sweep in Maharashtra and Haryana howsoever popular measures the Congress may take. The scenario in J&K is altogether different. A slight pause, however, in the Modi wave is bound to help the Congress-NCP combine in Maharashtra where BJP-Shiv Sena alliance is not comfortably placed. The populist measure—five per cent reservations for Muslims and 16 percent to Marathas—taken by the Prithiviraj Government is likely to yield results provided there is thaw in Modi wave.

Washington: At a time when Narendra Modi government completes one month in office, Indian community living in the United States is very optimistic about better Indo-US relations after the Prime Minister’s visit in September later this year.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee recently instructed state police authorities to crack down hard on criminals and help the government improve the law and order situation.

The war of words between the BJP and Congress in Madhya Pradesh has already touched a new high in so far as the Congress was, till now, levelling charges against ministers, political functionaries of the BJP and officers. But now the Congress has trained its guns at the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and his wife Sadhna Singh.

The Congress appears to be in a revamp mode after its humiliating rout in the recent Lok Sabha polls. While the party needs a brutal surgery the immediate plan seems to be to axe some of its chief ministers for the pitiable performance. Those facing sack include Prithviraj Chavan (Maharashtra), Bhupender Singh Hooda (Haryana) and Tarun Gogoi (Assam). The Assembly elections are due in Haryana and Maharashtra while Assam has three more years to go.

The emergence of Narendra Modi on national scene was not a cakewalk for him. Five years ago, when speculation was on over the successor of Advani and Vajpayee in BJP, he was counted as one of half a dozen second rung leaders of his party and no one was sure that he was the most potent among them. Analysts said that there would be competition among the second rung leaders and the winner would be the next leader of BJP. Since Narendra Modi was being accused of being responsible for the Gujarat riots after the burning of a train at Godhra, his possibility was rated low.

Who will be the new CPI(M) general secretary when Prakash Karat steps down on completing his term? Will his successor be elected unanimously? Or will there be a contest? These are the questions exercising the minds of CPI(M) cadres and leaders alike.

It is the story of the biggest tax ‘slap’ on a bunch of foreign companies who had been supposedly wooed by the UPA government to invest in India in the fields of high-tech, capital-intensive and employment-generating telecommunications, information technology, mobile phone handset manufacturing, hydrocarbon exploration, etc. The companies were lured by the seemingly liberalized foreign investment regime of the Congress-led UPA government, headed by its economist prime minister Manmohan Singh. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s most trusted prime minister left the charge of the important finance portfolio by turn with Palaniappan Chidambaram, a corporate law practitioner by profession, and temporarily with Pranab Mukherjee, a Congress veteran and a very successful finance minister under Mrs Indira Gandhi’s prime ministership in the early 1980s.

With a strong and stable new Government at the Centre following General Elections 2014, India’s counter terrorism measures are being strengthened to deal effectively with communalism, terrorism, left wing extremism (Maoism), insurgency and subversion. Multi-pronged steps including a relook at the existing law are afoot to tighten the internal security further for an assured peace and progress of the nation. The Government’s resolve to strengthen internal security, as pronounced in the President’s address to the joint session of both Houses of Parliament on June 9, 2014, would be ‘zero tolerance’ towards violence against women, communal strife, terrorism, subversion, insurgence and left-wing extremism. This is a repeat of what the Union Governments in the past have said.