View Articles

The three-day conclave of Overseas India scheduled at the beginning of 2011 is likely attract young generation. There would be two pre-conference seminars on healthcare and education, topics of interest to Overseas Indians.

It's impossible not to be moved by the human suffering and devastation caused by the floods in Pakistan for more than a month, which has made life hell for millions of people, a majority of them poor. One-fifth of Pakistan, an area the size of England, is under water. Twenty million people have been affected—even more than those affected in Asia by the 2004 tsunami. Millions have become homeless. Cattle have perished by the lakh.

The observation by a Congress spokesman, Janardan Dwivedi, that Sonia Gandhi could be the party president for 40 times was in the nature of a Freudian slip. Although he was responding to the BJP's criticism about the constitutional requirements in this context, the evident overreaction indicated both sycophancy and a defensive ploy. Subconsciously aware that a person becoming the party chief for four times in succession was not a normal event, Dwivedi banked on the age-old maxim of offence being the best defence.

Politics, it is said, is art of the possible. Their lust for power makes politicians feverishly practise the art. This is happening with Punjab's ruling allies Akali Dal and BJP. For sticking to power both are trying to practise the art even as the differences between the two have been growing. Will they be able to bridge the gulf before the 2012 Assembly elections? Possibly not. Will they part company? Perhaps not.

LUCKNOW: Chief Minister Mayawati is faced with serious problems at both government and party level as the opposition parties are gearing themselves to meet the challenge of assembly elections in 2012. The BSP supremo who led the Party to a thumping victory in the 2007 assembly elections, is now politically isolated snapping all communications with the other political parties in Uttar Pradesh.

The new tribe of instant political analysts has never had it so good. Rahul Gandhi along with the old veteran Digvijay Singh meets the PM and seeks cancellation of Vedanta's bauxite mining project at Niyamgiri in Orissa. Two days later he addresses a tribal rally a little away from the spot. And that was enough for the analysts to spin visions of Rahul as a tribal messiah with hints of his early launch to the top position. Some have even speculated who will get what ministry in the new setup. To add more grit, his programmes in the next few weeks, including his Kolkata rally, have been cited.

Pakistan's economic and social development has been disastrously interrupted for years by the worst-ever floods in its history in August 2010, engulfing more than a fifth of the country including rich croplands, and affecting some twenty million people, leaving about two thousand dead, and homes and vital infrastructure destroyed.

Buoyed by the CSO's first quarter growth estimate of 8.8 per cent in fiscal 2011, the highest since the last quarter of 2007-08, the planners are already at work on an approach paper with a dictum for a 10 per cent target for the 12th Plan (2012-17), around which everything should presumably evolve. An analysis of the data dimensions in CSO's press release does not lend itself to the optimism in evidence in the Establishment. No wonder, the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, has conceded that the estimates may undergo revision as more data become available for CSO in regard to the level of aggregate demand in the economy.

At heart, neither Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, nor union environment minister Jairam Ramesh may disagree that national mineral resources are meant to be scientifically exploited for the country's economic development and for the improvement of the quality of life of those impoverished people sitting on the piles of idle under-soil wealth for generations. But, the latest political farce over the bauxite mining venture of Vedanta Resources in Orissa's tribal stronghold in the Kalahandi region gives a different impression.

The winter of the global financial crisis is far from over. Whatever recovery is being noticed is fragile in nature. The proposed withdrawal of fiscal stimulus package in Western Europe may lead to double-dip recession and would not solve the intended fiscal problem since tax receipts will further fall, cautions UNCTAD in its trade and development report for the year 2010.