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When the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee entered the Writer’s Building in Kolkata two years ago, there were great expectations that she might use a magic wand to bring the state back to its old glory. There was hope that the long years of recession under the Left Front government would come to an end with the installation of a new government. Has Mamata squandered the enormous goodwill with which she snatched power in 2011?

New Delhi: India and Australia agreed to develop and strengthen cooperation in skills training in the farm sector.

New Delhi: The Afghan President Hamid Karzai left for Kabul on Wednesday with the assurance that India would do all its best to help in maintaining peace and security in Afghanistan and would remain committed to the development of the war ravaged country.

The Indian family’s universal acclaim as a holder of sacred values, as a carrier and preserver of traditions, and as the champion of ancient and prehistoric customs, has been touted as a lesson to commerce-driven trade relationships that have now replaced the tender family bonds of capitalist nations like United States. Or, is it at all so easy and simplistic?

The main entrance of the Reserve Bank of India’s office on Parliament Street in New Delhi is guarded by two massive figures of Yaksha and Yashini, the mythical figures who guard the immense divine wealth. The larger-than-life statutes in sandstone are the works of the famous sculptor Ramkinkar Beij. As a sculptor, Ramkinkar has given his creation a look of determination. The irony with Yaksha is that for eternity he is only guarding the wealth; he can never enjoy any of it.

Money, wine, women, film stars, politicians, businessmen, industrialists, policemen, bureaucrats, money launderers, bookies, gamblers, match fixers, prostitutes and honey traps, underworld dons, crazy fan following and also some cricket under the glare of millions of wasteful watts of electric light when vast parts of the country reel under power cuts! To increasing number of Indians, the cricket’s T-20 Indian Premier League (IPL) championship extravaganza is, to a large extent, a combination of all these and more! It is like a popular Bollywood masala film. It is also the last and most expensive of sporting entertainments in the country.

Strange as it may seem, it is not always difficult to pinpoint the moment when a politician’s downfall begins. For instance, in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s case, it was the time when he allowed himself to be persuaded by LK Advani, Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitley and others not to sack Narendra Modi after the 2002 Gujarat riots. The result of this misjudgment was the BJP’s defeat in the general election two years later, as Vajpayee himself acknowledged.

New Delhi: Initiating the topic of regional security, the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said “peace and stability in South Asia is consistent with China’s interest.”

New Delhi: The Vice President of India M Hamid Ansari left for a four-day visit to Uzbekistan on Tuesday to discuss regional efforts for peace and development of Afghanistan following the slated withdrawal of NATO forces in 2014.

New Delhi: While agreeing to work for reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement of the border issue, India and China stressed for cooperation in economic development sectors.