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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Will the Kerala BJP sink its differences in the wake of Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s visit to the State? Will the party realise its long-standing dream of opening its account from the state in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections? The whole of Kerala is awaiting an answer to these questions.

“India makes a power point”, announced a front-page Times of India headline with triumphant finality when Hyderabad-born Satya Nadella was named the CEO of the global software giant Microsoft, referring to the company’s well-known “Power Point” programme. “India on the move!” and “India raises [its] toast”, exulted other major papers.

It isn’t only theatrics – staging dharnas, proposing an assembly session in the Ramlila grounds - which characterize Arvind Kejriwal’s politics. Another, even more significant aspect is a simple, yet highly effective mode of propaganda. It is to identify a group of “villains” in the ruling fraternity and tar them with a black brush with no concern for the veracity of the charges.

In what seems to be the last major opportunity for the ruling UPA government before the ensuing polls to present its case, the finance minister P Chidambaram did his best. He seized the opportunity of tabling the country's interim Budget 2014-15 to initiate a debate between his government's track record of maintaining a stable economic growth vis-a-vis Modinomics of the rival party's prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi.

Finance Minister Mr P Chidambaram utilized the vote-on-account budget for 2014-15 he presented to the Lok Sabha on February 17 to project a story of “unparalleled” growth record of UPA Government in its ten years of power (2004-14) coupled with an appeal to political parties to carry forward left-over tax reforms (DTC and GST) and ensure continued stability of the Indian economy.

There is the Congress, the outer Congress, the inner Congress and the inner-inner Congress. Janardan Dwivedi, a long time fixture at the Indira Congress, is a member of the last circle. The sovereign who wants to push something unpopular also wants to know how deeply unpopular it is. One way to do this is to make someone very important but not supremely important to say something that the party can distance itself from given the reaction is too harsh. Debates around caste-based reservations, especially revisiting its principles, fall in that category.

The political realm of West Bengal was taken by storm when the eminent Gandhist social activist Anna Hazare decided to promote a political figure for the first time as the prime ministerial candidate for 2014 Lok Sabha election: that figure being none other than the current chief minister of West Bengal Ms. Mamata Banerjee.

When Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was protesting outside the Rail Bhavan on 21st January and asked the people to throng the Rajpath prior to 26th January’s Republic day celebration, it was amply clear where he was heading towards. His January protest was his own way to start election campaign for the next Lok Sabha. He was using his office of Chief Minister to project him on the national level as the anti corruption crusader only to become a force during and after the Lok Sabha election.

New Delhi: New Delhi World Book Fair-2014 was kicked off by the President of India Pranab Mukherjee here on Saturday sending strong signals of India developing relations with Poland - a country having rich literature and a home to many Nobel laureates.

Even though government has been able to introduce the bill seeking to create Telangana, bifurcating Andhra Pradesh, it is doubtful whether the measure would be passed in the two houses of Parliament? Mere introduction of the bill in the Lok Sabha witnessed such ugly scenes as never before seen, resulting in suspension of 16 members, mostly of the Congress, for the rest of the session. One wonders what will be the scene when the bill is taken up for consideration on Wednesday.