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The currency markets are facing fresh uncertainty and upheaval following reports about Italy facing a debt crisis after Greece, Spain and Portugal. The euro is feared to lose against the dollar and the latter is already gaining strength. The rupee has gained from the tumult and appreciated against the euro.

KOLKATA: It was learnt in early June that formal peace talks between the ULFA and the Government would begin by June end or July beginning. But that did not happen. Prospects for talks brightened after an eight-member ULFA delegation led by its chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa met Home Minister Chidambaram and Home Secretary G. K. Pillai and rounded off their meetings with a call on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on February 14.

Increasingly, it is becoming a matter of a grave public concern as charges of corruption against the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government keep piling up and even the seemingly best government intention is interpreted as action to protect the corrupt both inside and outside the officialdom.

A day before the cabinet reshuffle I asked a top source what was holding up the reshuffle and he promptly said it was due to lack of talent that the PM and Sonia Gandhi were not able to decide the changes. He startled me by asking, “Give me ten names “ and I answered that if they were not there, PM should try to get them from the market. In fact, Manmohan Singh is a shining example of how outsiders could adapt to the political system. Late Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao chose him to be his Finance minister when there was a total economic chaos in the country. In any case, the Congress cannot complain about lack of talent, as this aspect should have been taken into consideration during the ticket distribution for Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

The second reshuffle or rejig in the Union Council of Ministers by the Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh on July 12, 2011 is disappointing, to say the least. The first such reshuffle was effected in January 2011. Both taken together and as announced by the Prime Minister that it would be the last shuffling of the UPA-11 Government before the next General Elections to the Lok Sabha in May 2014 have come as a damp squib. It seems the UPA-11 has lost the will to govern much less take decisive measures to stem the rots of corruption, inflation and ability to reassure the people, the ultimate sovereign masters that the Government is business like and not adrift. Added to this, the Government appears to have lost the plot.

KOLKATA: For the CPI(M) in West Bengal, rediscovering its lost credibility is proving to be its biggest problem. Post 2011 State Assembly Elections, there has been a spate of self-critical articles in the party mouthpiece, spelling out the reasons for its poll debacle which saw its number of seats come down from 176 in 2006 to 40 in 2011. Leaders have done enough breast-beating in print and in candid interviews given to the electronic media.

After seven years in office, the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre is still seen groping for solutions to basic problems - food, land, affordable prices for the vast mass of the people and raising the social stature of India. This Government has, often citing “coalition compulsions”, failed to deliver governance in quite many areas, with corruption having lately subsumed all other ills in the economy and polity.

NEW DELHI: The UPA-2 government headed by Dr. Manmohan Singh will be facing a confrontationist BJP in the monsoon session of Parliament beginning August 1. The Government had planned a lot of reforms bills for discussions in the session for giving a push to the second phase of reforms in the economy, but the BJP leadership is dead set to stall any move by the Congress to continue normal proceedings of the session.

The four meetings between the prime minister and the Congress president over the cabinet reshuffle coupled with the delay in announcing the names showed that the diarchy wasn’t working smoothly. The relatively uneventful ties between Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi during UPA-I, except for the minor tremors over the nuclear deal, have evidently given way to a more fraught relationship at present.