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The World Bank Group has announced another record level of global lending of 57 billion dollars in fiscal year ending June 2011, on top of the 72 billion in fiscal 2010, as the post-crisis recovery for the world economy continues to remain uneven and weak. This takes the total of loan and soft credits for developing countries plus IFC investments in private enterprises to 189 billion dollars over the three-year period (FY 2009-11) since the global financial crisis erupted in September 2008.

The reason why the Congress has been caught in a quicksand over the Telengana and Lokpal issues is its political ineptitude. In both the cases, the party has been forced into a corner by the moral blackmail of its opponents – K.Chandrasekhara Rao over Telengana and Anna Hazare over the Lokpal bill. If it had been able to hold its nerve, the two crises might have been defused with its challengers beating a retreat after a show of bravado. Instead, the party panicked with the result that its adversaries gained a huge advantage.

Proximity of elections enlivens politics. Himachal Pradesh is its latest example. With less than 18 months to go for Assembly elections, the intra-party and inter-party controversies in the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress are sharpening. The Prem Kumar Dhumal-led BJP government is also increasingly coming under attack both from within and outside the party. What are likely to be the implications of these developments on the electoral fortunes of the two parties?

It’s an Einsteinian problem in relativity. The policymakers in India’s hydrocarbons sector are facing a problem of equating 17 US dollars to an average of 4.2. Let us elaborate. Petronet LNG, co-promoted by the Public sector Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) and principal marketer of the Australian LNG, recently contracted Liquefied Natural Gas from Australia at a price 4 times at which most of natural gas produced within the country is sold.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Political tension has escalated further with the United Democratic Front Government and the opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) taking to the confrontationist course on the issue of admissions to the self-financing medical colleges in the state.

Digvijay Singh may have described himself as a loose cannon in a TV interview, but the manner in which he persistently takes a contrarian line vis-à-vis the government can give the impression that he is dancing to someone else’s tune. Uma Bharati’s belief that he is Rahul Gandhi’s “spare tyre” is probably not far off the mark, for it is clear that the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister (also a poster boy of the Congress before he lost to the BJP in the state) is positioning himself on the right side of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh BJP is on cloud nine. The party’s victory in the assembly by-election in Jabera constituency of the Damoh district in the State has boosted its morale to a new high.

For all the hullabaloo that preceded the election of a new Chief of the International Monetary Fund, with calls from emerging nations to break the traditional European hold on the post, the Fund had little difficulty in appointing Ms. Christine Lagarde, France’s savvy Finance Minister, as Managing Director for a five-year term from July 5, 2011.This automatically followed once USA, wielding the highest voting power in the Fund, endorsed her over Mr. Agustin Carstens, Mexican central bank governor, her only credible rival.

Are there some vested interest groups, local as well as global, working in tandem to prevent India stepping into the next stage of industrial development and to put a brake to its high economic growth rate? The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, may disagree but events in the last two years, unfortunately, point finger at such a design.

New York: International tourism continues to rise around the world, with only the Middle East and North Africa lagging, and even those regions expected to improve later this year, according to the latest United Nations figures.