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New Delhi: In the beginning of the year 2014, India is hosting two important conclaves of countries to help Afghanistan have a peaceful presidential election and subsequently to prepare itself for the transformation process following the slated withdrawal of NATO forces from the war raged country in the current year.

As India is in the process of bidding its oil blocks for the 10th round of exploration and development under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), a lot of unresolved and seemingly insoluble issues have cropped up. This is over and above the electoral calendar coming in the way of any prospective investor to take a serious call till the new government is in place by June 2014 particularly when stability in policy has seldom been India’s forte and strength to attract investment.

Emergence of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on national level has become a new factor in the politics of Bihar. Since Bihar is notorious for its caste and community politics, it will be difficult for AAP to influence its politics. If we analyze its success in Delhi, we find that AAP was successful, where identity politics was weak. Success of AAP was restricted in those constituencies, where identity politics mattered. For example, AAP candidates were defeated by big margins in the constituencies dominated by Muslims.

As the Lok Sabha election looms, India’s political battle-lines are being redrawn. The Congress, mauled in recent elections, and loathed for high prices and corruption, seems dispirited, confused and unwilling to fight. Mr Rahul Gandhi’s likely nomination as its Prime Ministerial candidate—on the unproven, media-propagated, and probably mistaken, premise that such advance announcements significantly alter election results—won’t lift the party’s morale.

The New Year augurs well for the world economy, judging from a slew of global assessments, and induces hope for a better growth outcome in 2014 for the developing world, notably India though risks abound with all its macro-imbalances and political uncertainties in an election year.

The Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh singled out the nuclear deal as the high point of his career at his press conference, but he did not mention any low points as the questioner wanted him to do. However, the reason for the omission perhaps was the difficulty of choosing from a rather long list.

New Delhi: Sending a warning signal to Pakistan, India has said it would respond in equal measure if that country breaks any trust for peace.

New Delhi: While the Union government is planning to set up an Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) to ensure equal access to opportunity, entitlements/rights to deprived groups belonging to the minority communities, the Chairman of the National Minorities Commission (NMC) Wajahat Habibullah pulled up the Gujarat and Haryana governments for not setting state minorities commissions, despite the presence of large minority communities in these two states.

New Delhi: In a run up to the poll campaign, the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh sought to encash upon government’s programmes benefiting the minority communities, particularly the Muslims.

While Arvind Kejriwal - the new Chief Minister of Delhi and debutant in politics – opted for anti-corruption movements through regulatory measures, Narendra Modi opted for development works to weed out corruption. Arvind Kejriwal believed that anti-corruption movement, through sting operations and helpline, will make aam admi bold enough to batter corruption. He talked less about development works and focused on anti-corruption measures. His election manifesto asserted on Jan Lokpal Bill and time-bound investigations and punishment in cases of corruptions. Manifesto barely touched upon development works.