View Articles

KOLKATA: With compulsions of national-level politics finally catching up with the Congress, its uneasy alliance with the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal faces rough weather.

CHANDIGARH: NDA's 'Maha Rally' held at Ludhiana yesterday and attended by its eight Chief Ministers and leaders of some of its other constituents was an attempt to present a united face at a time when the ruling UPA has shown signs of cracks. Its obvious objective was not only immediate electoral considerations but also preparation of the ground to unitedly deal with the post-polls situation.

NEW DELHI: A change in the direction of the present pro-foreign capital economic policy of the Centre and the formulation of an independent foreign policy will be the two major demands which the Left will be making in the event of the Congress approaching it for support to its attempt to form a new coalition after May 16.

There are only a few certainties in this most unpredictable of all elections. One can only be sure of the fact that the SP and the BSP will continue to remain in opposite camps in U.P., like the DMK and the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu. So will the Trinamool Congress and the Left in West Bengal although this may not be true of the Trinamool's ally, the Congress, and the communists, especially at the Centre.

Barely three years after the people of Nepal launched the April Uprising which turned their country into a beacon of democratic hope for the world, Nepal has been plunged into turmoil by a standoff between the civilian government led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), and the military, which saw Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda resign as Prime Minister.

India's month-long voting for the 15th Lok Sabha is winding down with the fifth and final phase on May 13, when Tamil Nadu will seal the fate of the battered DMK-Congress alliance versus Ms. Jayalalithaa's AIADMK-led front apparently riding a resurgent wave, and provide a key factor in shaping the next Government at the Centre.

LUCKNOW: It is virtually a war involving top leaders of different political parties for control of the Rohilkhand region of UP which goes to the polls on May 13.

Although voting in nine of the Punjab's 13 Lok Sabha constituencies is to take place on May 13, questions are already being asked about the state's post-poll political scenario.

President Barack Obama's strategy to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” al Qaeda and its extremist allies (Taliban) is being put to the severest test in the world's “most dangerous” region, Afghanistan-Pakistan, where terrorists operate from safe havens, especially in Pakistan's North-West tribal areas.

The big business is all for Congress. So are the bureaucrats. The reason is understandable. Both are the biggest beneficiaries of the Congress-led government at the Centre. The domestic industry has made thousands of crores of rupees out of the government's economic revival package, basically in the form of a series of lending rate cuts by the reserve Bank of India.