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KOLKATA: In West Bengal, the impressive magnitude of the Trinamool Congress (TMC)-Congress alliance’s victory in the 2011 Assembly elections has persuaded even neutral observers to declare the outcome as a “highly positive” mandate.

The five-month-old uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa for democratic freedoms took the centre-stage at the annual G-8 Summit (May 26-27) in Deauville, France, when the leaders of industrial nations including Russia launched a 'partnership' with all countries of the region engaged in transition toward freedom, democracy and tolerant societies, with an initial aid component of upto 40 billion dollars for programmes of inclusive and sustainable growth.

KOLKATA: The decision to make the agreement between the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation and the Tata Motors in 2007 on the Nano automobile project at Singur public by the new government in West Bengal, led by the All India Trinamool Congress has unnerved the erstwhile CPI(M)-led Left Front government which refused to disclose it. The commerce and industry minister of the new government in West Bengal, Partha Chatterjee, and leader of Opposition in the last or 14th West Bengal state legislature, has reiterated, “once the legal complications for disclosure of the deal are over, it will be a public document. Our government will prepare a white paper on the Singur deal too”.

The Eurozone crisis over high sovereign debt in certain economies may just be an alibi for a 333-point Sensex crash on a single day trading on Monday, May 23rd. The debt crisis in certain EU countries, including Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy, is nothing new. The Sensex, the benchmark 30-share Bombay stock exchange (BSE) index, is not the hottest news for global investors. BSE does not even feature in the list of global prime markets.

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh completed his one -year in office in 2005, he gave himself six out of ten for his government’s performance. At the end of seven years, how many marks will he give himself? Could it be four or five going by the number of scams the government faced in the last two years? He will certainly agree that compared to the UPA 1, the record of UPA 2 has been dismal on several fronts.

The crimes against women across India have gone up manifold during the five–year period from the calendar year 2005 to the calendar year 2009, figures for which are available in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. The number of crimes against women under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Special and Local Laws (SLL) went up from 1,55,553 in 2005 to 1,64,765 in 2006, to 1,85,312 in 2007, to 1,95,856 in 2008 and to 2,03,804 in 2009.

LUCKNOW: Chief Minister Mayawati and her BSP is preparing on ground to take on AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi in particular and his party Congress in general, on the issue of land especially after Bhatta Persaul incidents.

The various scams exposed one after another have terribly shaken the confidence of the market. These scams have caused serious waste of resource. In a city like Mumbai where there is a shortage of schools and hospitals for the poor, valuable government subsidised properties that is otherwise can be used for these purposes, have been time and again cornered by the corrupt. The situation is analogous to the Pigs in Orwell’s classic “Animal Farm” where they corner the apples because they do superior mind work leading to a corrupt set-up in the farm. In fact scams like Adarsh Society just exposes the rot in the society. Shouldn’t we put a stop to wanton corruption and build a system where retribution and justice is swift, impartial and certain?

Reading the UPA-II report card – with its commitment to “transparency and accountability” – one cannot but confess to a sense of disillusionment with this annual litany of “achievements” while overwhelming “failures” are papered over, with a finesse in language and offering the same reaffirmations heard many a time. What would be more credible is an “Action Report” on what was promised year after year, and what was accomplished thereupon in specific terms, whether in regard to incomes, rural and urban, jobs, educational and other social advances, apart from other areas of development. Its single benchmark of rate of growth may be self-satisfying but not readily translatable into meaningful human advance.

The electorate in five Indian states has delivered a verdict which appears mixed on the surface, but is unambiguous in its central message. That three-fold message is that the people will ruthlessly punish corrupt politicians who sabotage democratic institutions even when they may take some populist welfare measures. People are equally unsparing towards those who profess progressive ideas, but practise the opposite. And they reward those who deliver public services and practise harmony, not divisiveness.