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Will there be early Lok Sabha elections? Two Types of speculations—one astrological and another political — are doing rounds in the corridors of powers on the timing of the general election. There are astrologers among journalists, astrologer –politicians and practicing astrologers, who after studying the planetary position of political parties in depth, have forecast that the elections may be held in October or November, this year.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the Kerala Congress (B) and the Janadhipathya Samrakshana Samithy (JSS) hardening their stances, the crisis bedevilling the United Democratic Front (UDF) Government is set to reach the flash point.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar knows fully well that this poll-bound UPA-II government has no power to arbitrarily accord his state a ‘backward’ status for large special fund support. So does the UPA-II government, which has badly missed the fiscal and current account deficit targets for three successive years ending 2012-13. Yet, why are the two talking about the special status and special package from the Centre and bluffing the public about exploring such possibilities during the current fiscal itself or before the ensuing nation-wide Lok Sabha election?

The Sri Lankan Tamil issue has been kicked up with an explosive bang on the political scene in Tamil Nadu, keeping the two major Dravidian rivals, ruling AIADMK and ousted DMK, at each other’s throats, in a battle of championship of rights of ethnic kinsmen in the island nation, four years after the Rajapakse Government brutally wiped out the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) demanding a separate “Eelam”.

The idea of a third front consisting of non-Congress and non-BJP parties keeps popping up now and then. It has gained focus once again in the media after the Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav pointed out in a public meeting in Sangli recently that the coalition governments have come to stay and therefore a union of parties 'committed to social change' in Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh is good.

New Delhi : The French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian talked to the Indian Defence Minister AK Antony over phone on Tuesday and convey his regret over the incident at Bangui airport in the Central African Republic (CAR) in which two Indian nationals were killed and six others injured during firing by French troop guarding the airport.

New Delhi : After urging for India’s boycott CHOGM Summit in Colombo, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has given the IPL organizers a headache by bluntly refusing to host the high-profile cricket series in her home state if players, umpires, officials or supporting staff from Sri Lanka participated.

For learning, one does not always need a tutor, a supervisor or a guide. It can be self-induced with efforts. We can call it a trial and error system (TES), but it’s definitely fool-proof, as the success rate would be hundred percent.

The Human Development Report 2013, just released by the United Nations Development Programme, highlights the rise of the Global South, comprising some 130 developing countries. These have become the main drivers of the world economy. They are ascending at a pace ‘unprecedented in its speed and scale’. The ‘living conditions and prospects’ of their people have dramatically changed for the better.

Narendra Modi’s switch from the politics of communalism to that of development is not the first instance in recent times of such a transformation from one political-ideological outlook to another, which is dramatically different. In Modi’s case, it followed the realisation that his erstwhile policies were no longer a paying proposition.