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Reading the UPA-II report card – with its commitment to “transparency and accountability” – one cannot but confess to a sense of disillusionment with this annual litany of “achievements” while overwhelming “failures” are papered over, with a finesse in language and offering the same reaffirmations heard many a time. What would be more credible is an “Action Report” on what was promised year after year, and what was accomplished thereupon in specific terms, whether in regard to incomes, rural and urban, jobs, educational and other social advances, apart from other areas of development. Its single benchmark of rate of growth may be self-satisfying but not readily translatable into meaningful human advance.

The electorate in five Indian states has delivered a verdict which appears mixed on the surface, but is unambiguous in its central message. That three-fold message is that the people will ruthlessly punish corrupt politicians who sabotage democratic institutions even when they may take some populist welfare measures. People are equally unsparing towards those who profess progressive ideas, but practise the opposite. And they reward those who deliver public services and practise harmony, not divisiveness.

An unassertive prime minister and a calculating Congress president are responsible for making the UPA-2’s second anniversary perhaps the saddest in the seven years that the ruling alliance has been in power in two avatars. Much of the blame for its present plight has to be borne by Sonia Gandhi. Right from 2004 when UPA-1 first came to power, her sole concern has been to enable the Congress hold on to the reins of power at any cost. Given the party’s minority status in the coalition, the only way it could remain in office was by conceding the demands of the allies.

After in neighbouring Punjab, the focus of politics has also shifted on corruption issues in Himachal Pradesh. Like in some other corruption-hit states, it is land and realtor cases that have pushed the hill state into media headlines. Two developments indicate this. One is the alleged large-scale illegal sale of land and violation of the relevant Acts by granting permission to outsiders, particularly private builders, to buy land in the state. Second is the government’s inaction in granting prosecution sanctions against corrupt officers who were reinstated and given plum posts by the government despite vigilance cases pending against them.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Congress continues to be in the vice-like grip of groupism, and allies are making it tough for the party. That is the unmistakable impression emanating from the developments prior to the ministry formation by the United Democratic Front (UDF).

There has been no progress as yet in India’s bid for reforms in the United Nations Organisation particularly in the United Nations Security Council.

NEW DELHI: Housing saving rates of average employee in metros has come down by 45% in last six years due to exorbitant increased price of essential commodities, fuel, education, burden on housing loan installment and increase in health insurance premia, reveals the ASSOCHAM survey.

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party has blamed Rahul Gandhi his party Congress and UPA government at the Centre and Mayawati led BSP government in Uttar Pradesh for exploitation of farmers for the last four years.

BHOPAL: Two recent events have become the talk of the town in Madhya Pradesh. The first was the razing to the ground of an allegedly illegal huge Mall, belonging to an influential builder-cum media baron and the ruthless removal of encroachments in Bhopal. And the second is the election of State Youth Congress office bearers. Perhaps it was for the first time since the Youth Congress came into being that its office bearers were elected by the ordinary workers. So far, they were nominated by the Central leadership.

The sudden crisis at the top level at the International Monetary Fund, the first of its kind in its 65-year history of monitoring world finance, needs to be overcome at the earliest, for this post-war institution to regain its legitimacy and relevance and in helping to steer the global economy out of its post-recession travails.