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The stage is being set for what looks like a ‘Sonia Gift’ of Telengana by January 28, in a political gamble to salvage as many Lok Sabha seats as possible for the Congress in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, even in a truncated Andhra Pradesh, now no longer its stronghold. The desperate move is designed mainly to counter the perceived challenge of YSR Congress of imprisoned Mr Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, MP, who commands a considerable following in Rayalaseema and Coastal districts.

The bad news is Sensex, the 30-share sensitive index of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), is soaring again merely on sentiment and official announcements and not on logic. The Sensex briefly breached the psychology-booster 20,000-mark on January 15, a day after the doubly auspicious Makar Sankranti and Purna Kumbha at Ganga Sagar and Allahabad, respectively. The next day, it dropped marginally by 0.86 percent on the indication from the Reserve Bank governor, Dubburi Subbarao, that the current inflation rate did not warrant an immediate interest rate cut.

What is ailing the Congress? More than anything else, it is the widening communication gap, which is responsible for the present state of affairs. Gone are the days when a scribe or a worker could walk into the house of a leader and meet him. Day by day the leaders are moving away from the public and living in their secure bungalows, while the disconnect gets wider and wider. The Congress leaders are expected to propagate the achievements of the party but they have missed every opportunity to strike a rapport with the electorate.

Beggars do not make good stories. They are not consumers who can pay for or buy news. They are mostly peripatetic, therefore non-voters. They do not qualify for Aadhaar card, hence for cash dole. No wonder, the mention of beggars in the recently submitted 12th Five-year Plan Document did not find many takers in the Indian media. Curious as it may seem to many of us, excited as normally we are by the mention of the richest Indians in the global top 20 list, that the Plan document cared to ask for a national policy on beggars and a model central law on begging.

LUCKNOW: Following the initiative from Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, the UP Government will be hosting the international level ‘Partnership Summit – 2013’ at the city of Taj Mahal, Agra from January 27 to 29 2013.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The strike launched by pro-Left service organisations in support of their demand to scrap the contributory pension scheme to be introduced from April 1, 2013, has been called off to the palpable relief of one and all. But the manner in which the Government headed by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy tackled the strike cannot but cause utmost concern.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) returned to the US dollar bond market yesterday with the pricing of a $1 billion 7-year global benchmark bond issue. The proceeds of the bond will be part of the bank’s ordinary capital resources and used in its non-concessional operations.

Four years after the onset of the global financial crisis, the world economy remains fragile and growth in high-income countries is weak. Developing countries need to focus on raising the growth potential of their economies, while strengthening buffers to deal with risks from the Euro Area and fiscal policy in the United States, says the World Bank in the newly-released Global Economic Prospects (GEP) report.

Business competitiveness and export performance are increasingly tied to countries’ integration into global production chains and a willingness to open markets to wider imports, according to preliminary international trade data released today by the OECD and the WTO.