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Few would believe their ears when the Union Railway Minister Mr. D.V. Sadananda Gowda presenting the maiden railway budget of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance Government frankly conceded that an organization of big magnitude “vested with varied responsibilities is expected to earn like a commercial enterprise but serve like a welfare organization”. Stretching the imagery further he hit the nail on the head by stating that these two objectives are “like two rails of the railway track, which though travel together but never meet”. What a candid confession that the system he is presiding over had been milked arid over the years by successive railway ministers who preceded him so much so that social service obligation of providing concessional carriage of both passenger and the freight had bled the system black and blue, leaving little resources for maintenance and expansion of the network!

Modi government has outlined the future development agenda for Indian Railways that includes launching of Bullet Trains (with speed above 200 kmp), increasing the speed of trains on certain track to 160 to 200 kmp with an ambitious plan to have a Diamond Quadrilateral Network, connecting major Metros and growth centers of the country and providing workstations in select trains, alongwith improvement in basic facilities like ensuring travel safety and providing hygienic food on board and setting up of food courts at major stations.

Safe return home of 46 nurses and hundreds of Indian expatriates from strife-ridden Iraq is an example of Quality Track-I Diplomacy and governance, in which Indian government has excelled once again. This is the third time in last three decades that a major possible social crisis has been cleverly averted.

Having said before the elections that Narendra Modi was not the right person to be prime minister, Amartya Sen’s recent acceptance of the Gujarat strong man’s right to govern, “and govern well”, before an Asia House audience in London was more gracious than Sonia Gandhi’s initial reluctance to personally congratulate Modi.

KOLKATA: It is not often that one sympathises with local vigilante initiatives, even if the objective is to ensure the ends of justice, sometimes in a rough and ready manner.

A budget document is an economic expression of a government’s political will. Speculations about the theme and contents of the Narendra Modi government’s 2014-15 budget started even before BJP launched its nation-wide Lok Sabha poll campaign. The announcement of Narendra Modi’s name as the party’s prime ministerial candidate did the trick. The global investment banker, Goldman Sachs, was the first to speculate on the possibility of a Modi-led BJP government to unseat the non-performing, policy-paralysed and scam labeled Congress-led UPA.

While the rest of the country universally condemned Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Tapas Pal’s brutally vulgar 'speeches', inciting people to rape women and kill all political opponents, a brief query appearing in the running scroll of a national English TV channel , encapsulated the agony of West Bengal : it went, 'Can West Bengal sink any lower?'

Congress is down but not out. In the past too, when people were saying the Congress has gone forever, the party revived. In 1977, following the Emergency, the Congress was completely routed in north India, even formidable Indira Gandhi was defeated on her home turf – Rae Bareili – by buffoon looking Raj Narain. Down South – Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka – stood by Mrs. Gandhi like a rock and she made an astonishing recover in 1980 mid - term poll.

New Delhi: The country has not learnt lessons in crisis management from the hijack of Indian airlines to Kandahar and intermittent attacks on Indian establishments in Afghanistan. The unpreparedness of Indian government to meet such emergency has made it difficult to bail out its nationals trapped in conflict-torn Iraq.

Mr. Narendra Modi’s hobnob with China is not sudden and new. His relation with China was established well before he became Prime Minister. As Chief Minister of Gujarat, he first visited China in November 2011. His attempt for special relationship with Japan churned after he visited China. His first visit to Japan was in November 2012. He visited China four times and Japan only once before he became the Prime Minster. If the number of visits is any indication for leg up in the relation, China is ahead of Japan. In both the cases, Modi’s priority was to attract foreign investment in Gujarat.