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One might not have expected the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to be so quick in responding to the hospitality he received in India last month. In fact the G20 summit slated in Brisbane middle of next month has given this opportunity. Abbott is preparing to lay the red carpet for the Indian Prime Minister Narendrabhai Damodardass Modi.

When Bharatiya Janata Party leader LK Advani famously said of the media during the Emergency that “when asked to bend, they crawled”, he received widespread praise from the intelligentsia and even from people opposed to the BJP’s ideology—because he spoke the truth about the loss of independence and professional integrity on the part of the Fourth Estate and other institutions.

The history of communism in India is one of strategic miscalculations at the national level as a result of blinkered tactical manoeuvres in the states. The outcome is that while the comrades have remained a marginal force at the centre, their main ideological adversary, viz. the BJP, has made major gains.

NEW DELHI: Removal of the multi-level taxing systems and inter-state checkpoints for movement of vehicles laden with goods for states, is essential today. These would effectively halve the transit time and losses due to the logistics at transits.

Tamil Nadu political scene is now astir, with BJP and other state-level parties looking ambitiously for a hold on power through new alignments in the run-up to the 2016 Assembly elections, and thus hoping to open a new chapter in the State's chequered politics, hitherto dominated by two Dravidian majors alternately.

The Union Government has set up 21 Counter Insurgency and Anti-Terrorist (CIAT) Schools across the country to train police and other security personnel for combating terrorism and left-wing extremism known as Maoism. Established during 2013-14, all the CIAT Schools have become functional.

Convicted war criminal Ghulam Azam is dead. He died last week. He was 91. In the subcontinent, many political figures enjoy interesting lives after death. There is a peculiar way in which death accords respectability even to the worst scum on earth. Important people declare somber condolences. Concrete memorials come up overnight in the middle of the street. The number of such memorials corresponds to the perceived political stature of the deceased and the extent to which the person is encashable after death. In certain cases, the enthusiasm in memorial building is a signal to the still living honchos in dynastic political organizations as a signal of one’s devotion and loyalty – a crucial thing for a healthy mainstream cushy political future.

The Union Cabinet has just cleared a Rs. 80,000 crore proposal for modernization of our defence forces. Earlier it had sanctioned another Rs. 40,000 crore for the same purpose. The decision has come not a day too soon. Defence has been the proverbial Cinderella of the Government ever since independence. Even the Chinese aggression of 1962 failed to make us realize the importance of defence.

Can government ever find out black money deposited by Indians in foreign banks, particularly in Switzerland? Judging by records of the past governments, one wonders if Modi government can perform a feat—unearth back money stashed in foreign banks. Making election promises is one thing and fulfilling them is another thing. One of the main electoral promise of Narendra Modi was to unearth black money and reveal names of culprits and that too within 100 days of occupying office. On its first day in power, the BJP-led government did announce the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money but, gradually got bogged down in procedural and legal wrangling.

A definite shift in India’s Look East Policy is underway with added emphasis on Buddha diplomacy under the new dispensation. The Prime Minister Narendrabhai Damodardass Modi plans to market the Buddha card to the countries in the region as India is the place of origin of Dhamman and Sangham. He indicated such a change in emphasis by his first official visit abroad to a neighbouring Buddhist country in South Asia, Bhutan and then to Nepal where Lord Buddha was born. His first official visit outside South Asia was to another Buddhist country, Japan.