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The time has come for Himachal Pradesh's Prem Kumar Dhumal-led BJP government to have a closer look at its governance record.

Last week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was taken aback when journalists accosted him in Parliament for his reaction about JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav's threat to consume poison if the Women's Reservation Bill was passed. Mr. Singh stood quiet for a minute and, recovering his composure, just smiled and walked away without giving an answer.

KOLKATA: Pakistan is not willing to apologise to Bangladesh over the genocide in its former Eastern province which broke away and became free in 1971.

The address by President Pratibha Patil in Parliament has many firsts - not just that it comes from the first woman President.

The handsome electoral victory of the United Progressive Alliance, one would have thought, would lead to smooth, consensual government formation under a confident Congress. But the expectation was belied. Three weeks after the results were declared, the formation of the UPA Council of Ministers is still incomplete.

Having played a seminal role in reviving the Congress in U.P., Rahul Gandhi has done the right thing by focussing on the party's fortunes in Tamil Nadu. The party lost its footing in the state in 1967 when the Congress suffered its first post-independence reverses in large parts of the country. Of these, the setbacks in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and the Hindi belt were harbingers of a gloomy future.

The Manmohan Singh Government, drawing strength and lessons from the electoral verdict, has laid out an elaborate roadmap, setting out its near and medium-term socio-economic objectives, with the utmost emphasis on both effective governance and accountable delivery of services to the people.

LUCKNOW: The newly-appointed president of the Uttar Pradesh Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav, MP, is facing the biggest challenge of reorganizing and revitalising the party whose poor performance in the Lok Sabha polls has shocked the party leadership.

The Bangladesh economy has begun to be affected by the second-round effects of the global economic crisis, which could reduce the country's near-term growth prospects, says a recently published report of the Asian Development Bank.

Even if the BJP has suffered a severe drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections, it can certainly feel happy that it is never short of advisers and sooth-sayers. NRI professors, Haward analysts and our own desi TV channel anchors all have the nauseatingly similar homilies to offer. It is almost a reproduction of the same brief: the BJP lost because of the 'weak-PM' campaign, Varun remarks, Narendra Modi's projection as future PM, Mangalore pub attacks and the party joining the 'obstructionist' Left on the nuclear deal.