View Articles

The fight for the coming Assembly elections in Punjab has become a no-holds barred battle between the Akali-BJP combine and the Congress. The PCC President Capt. Amarinder Singh and the otherwise suave Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal are lambasting each other using harsh adjectives. In the uncontrolled war of words, the lines are getting blurred between truth and reality. To beat the elections code of conduct deadline, the ruling Akali brass has, in undue haste, been making promises and announcing sops and freebies.

A tumultuous monsoon session of Parliament will have an added element of Ms. Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK joining the chorus of opposition on a whole range of issues from 2 G spectrum scandal and the accused former Telecom Minister Raja’s implicatory references to the Prime Minister and Home Minister, to inflation, Lok Pal and the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The 18 AIADMK MPs in Parliament will do Amma’s bidding. She, however, is against the inclusion of Prime Minister in the Lok Pal legislation.

NEW DELHI: India signing the Domestic Workers’ Convention adopted at the recently held 100th Session of ILO’s International Labour Conference, has suddenly brought into national focus this most neglected, unorganised and hard-to-organise sector of female workers’ household service. They are known as maid servants.

NEW DELHI: The discussion paper circulated by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) of the Industry Ministry has suggested major policy changes in respect of the foreign direct investment in the country which have all the potential of encouraging flow of foreign funds into the Indian economy in this critical period.

New Delhi: The much debated Lok Pal Bill, 2011 is likely to be tabled by the third day of the Monsoon Session of the Parliament which begins from August 1. It would be tabled in the Lok Sabha.

Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh N Hegde’s independent investigation report evidencing the involvement of Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and several others, including former state CMs, in illegal mining in the state is merely a tip in the iceberg in so far as the history of India’s illegal mining is concerned. The illegal mining and quarrying industry is worth several billions of dollars and is not restricted to Karnataka alone. It has always thrived on political patronage.

LUCKNOW: BSP supremo and chief minister Mayawati has decided to launch major offensive against political rivals especially Congress and Samajwadi Party in view of 2012 assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP high command has taken the right but difficult decision to sack Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa but will he go quietly? He had survived several crises earlier but this time he had no such luck. Now that the BJP Parliamentary Board has decided to show him the door it is clear that the BJP bosses have felt “enough is enough “What is important is that even if he is innocent, politics is perception and in the eye of the public the chief minister is corrupt. In these three years the chief minister did nothing to correct his image with the result today, no tears are shed for his ouster.

KOLKATA: A leopard, the saying goes, cannot change its spots : she may be two months in power, but new West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee cannot abandon her crowd pleasing ways.

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is set to give a big push to the second phase of reforms in the monsoon session of Parliament beginning August 1 to prove the point that there is no paralysis in the functioning of the Government under his leadership and the steam is not off from the course of liberalization. He also wants to show that he is firmly in control as the head of the UPA2 regime.