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My parents, both of whom went to Bangla-medium schools, had decided to send me to an English-medium school. Among other things, this was a marker of relative affluence. From Kolkata’s insular perch, it was perceived to be an essential lubricant to socio-economic ascendency. It was also true that much of Kolkata’s upper-middle and middle classes had deserted public institutions – schools and hospitals were the major casualties of this trend because institutions of the poor and administered by the rich without a stake in them run very poorly. This reality may have also worked in my parent’s minds – the only son needs to succeed and earn.

Apart from Rahul Gandhi, there are several others at present in Indian politics who have goofed-up. Arvind Kejriwal is among them and Prakash Karat is another. To start with the Aam Admi Party (AAP) chief, his fall was anticipated by his mentor, Anna Hazare, soon after the two parted company when he described his erstwhile protégé as “power hungry”.

In a democracy, the will of the people is supreme. Any Government that tries to impose a decision in blatant disregard of the people’s sentiments and seeks to ride roughshod over their is bound to suffer its implications.

The Congress has shrunk to lowest-ever size of 44 in the 16th Lok Sabha but as many as 18 Congressmen continue to occupy gubernatorial office. Will it be possible for the Narendra Modi Government to remove them? Going by a Supreme Court ruling, it is not possible to replace Governors but going by past practice they can be easily replaced and sacked, if they refuse to step down. However, the new Prime Minister’s hands are tied by a verdict of five-judge bench of the apex court as far back as May, 2010, disapproving the practice of replacing Governors after a new government comes to power at the centre. The ruling says “the governors are appointed for a fixed five-year term and as such they cannot be changed in an arbitrary and capricious manner.” The Governor cannot be removed merely because they are ‘not in sync’ with the party in power unless there are compelling reasons for proving misconduct and irregularities, says the apex court’s ruling.

BHOPAL: “So far, we have not formally gone into the causes for our defeat in the Lok Sabha polls. It may take a month or two before we introspect as to the reasons that led to our dismal performance”, was the reply of Rameshwar Neekhra, senior Vice-President of Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee, when asked what was the reason behind the Congress winning only 2 of the 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh.

No expression is strong enough to condemn the project delays during the Congress-led UPA regime which, according to latest estimates, blocked gigantic investments to the tune of some Rs. 20 lakh crore, in total. Assuming that 50 per cent of these projects, if taken up in time, were genuinely bankable ones, the country would have witnessed a gross investment of Rs. 10 lakh crore in core and infrastructure projects. A good number of them were related to the power sector. It is difficult to believe that the Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh government chose to sleep over those power projects when large parts of country have been witnessing blackouts or severe power cuts for years. Growing disputes over land acquisition by utility companies, environment clearance and fuel-linkage derailed the country’s power generation programme and, in turn, economic growth as populism and political brinkmanship took precedence over economic logic and social priority. The fate of at least 40 new power projects – coal-fired, gas-based, hydro and nuclear – was driven into uncertainty due to a sheer absence of political will on the UPA government’s part to see them through.

The Modi Sarkar hit the ground from day one with the new Ministers reeling off their intended policy moves, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi went through bilateral exchanges with leaders of the South Asian region, whom he had invited to watch his induction into office earlier, on May 26. The new Finance Minister Mr Arun Jaitley plunged himself into the fiscal conundrum to sort out issues for immediate attention before he gets on with the pre-budget discussions.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took out a rabbit from his hat when he invited the SAARC leaders for his swearing-in ceremony on Monday and took it forward by having a separate ‘get to know’ meeting with each of the leaders who had arrived in Delhi to witness the spectacular event. No doubt he got kudos for this coup, and has seized the initial advantage but it is too early to speculate on his foreign policy initiatives.

Lot of eyebrows have been raised about the future of education in India under the dispensation of the new minister for human resources development who has not completed her graduation level study in formal education. This was fuelled by no other than a former minister and responsible spokesperson of the Congress party Ajay Maken soon after the former's appointment.

It was Uttar Pradesh in 2009 Lok Sabha election, which helped Congress cross 200 figure of MPs in the lower house and it is again Uttar Pradesh, which has helped BJP to get absolute majority on its own in the Lok Sabha in 2014 elections. If we have a close look on the election results of Uttar Pradesh, we can see how restless the people of the most populated state of India are. No one was expecting a full majority of Mayawati in 2007 Assembly elections, but she got that. In 2009 Lok Sabha election, Congress was bargaining with Samajwadi Party for 20 seats and had to fight alone because of the refusal of Mulayam Singh to give it so many seats. But, surprisingly Congress won 22 seats along with Ferozabad, it won later on. 2012 Assembly elections saw Samajwadi Party getting comfortable majority. All these results were unexpected and were not in consonance with the earlier results.