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New Delhi : Just a few days before the slated visit of the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe to this country, India and Japan signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for strengthening cooperation in the field of tourism.

For the West Bengali bhadralok (or whatever remains of them), East Bengal continues to represent vastly different things to different people: a Muslim-majority country now called Bangladesh, an audacious dream of ethnic pride and secularism, a land vaguely culturally similar but distant in imagination, some of their forefather’s homeland, the place where cyclones aimed at West Bengal finally end up, a previous hub of ISI activity, the place of origin of the wondrous Ilish fish, among others. The list goes on.

Thirty six hours agitation by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has ended without yielding any results, yet the CM is boasting of the victory of the people of Delhi. He had announced the agitation under the false perception that under his thread the Home Ministry of Union government would at least transfer the police officers involved in wrangling with the AAP Ministers. After that he would have launched a movement to make Delhi Police subordinate to his government. Home Ministry of the Union Government was aware that it could not satisfy Kejriwal by accepting his demands of transfer of the police personnel.

New Delhi: In response to the recent suspension of cross-border bus services by Pakistan, India summoned the Pakistani deputy envoy to resolve the issue.

The world economy looks to have reversed a prolonged slowdown, with the stronger recovery now in advanced economies, and growth is expected to bounce to 3.7 per cent from 3 per cent in 2013, the latter half of which already saw a pickup in both global output and trade.

BHOPAL: The mega scam in Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (Vyapam) dominated the proceedings of the first session of the newly-elected Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha. Scathing attack was launched on the BJP government by Satyadev Katare, the new leader of Opposition.

The Delhi law minister Somnath Bharti’s recent unseemly conduct has confirmed the wisdom of those who decided that the police in the national capital should remain under the control of the centre. Otherwise, there may be repetitions of the unprecedented scene of the external affairs ministry having to reassure the envoys of a specific group of countries – in this case, those from Africa – that their nationals are safe in Delhi.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The controversy surrounding the tragic death of his wife has put a question mark over the candidature of Union Minister Shashi Tharoor for the Lok Sabha election.

There are now three national-level players for the Battle of 2014, the third one a fledgling upstart - AAP -a novelty on the political scene, building on its unexpected electoral triumph in Delhi to aspire for power at the Centre. It is still in experimental stage, notwithstanding the instant response it has evoked among professionals and the young in a climate of rising expectations for a new era of politics.

A twist in India-Japan relation was witnessed with the increase in Chinese assertiveness in East Asia. Hitherto, India-Japan relation was encircled by only economic and commercial sectors. The departure from the earlier stance was noted with Japan introducing new defence guidelines on December 17, 2013, under new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The two strategic documents (National Security Strategy and National Defence Guidelines 2014), adopted under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, identified a number of areas in which Japan would like to strengthen cooperation with India in the near future. This is believed to counter China’s new air-defence information zone (ADIZ) in East China Sea covering disputed islands of Senkakus and Diaoyus, declared a week before.