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With a recent letter from Cabinet Secretary to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Railway Board in the Ministry of Railways asking him to intimate his office the monthly progress of privatization of Indian Railways, the process of its all round privatization has been fast tracked.

Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is in Sri Lanka on a three-day visit. Besides meeting the top Sri Lankan leadership, the minister will take part in BIMSTEC foreign ministers' meeting on March 29, which will culminate in the virtual BIMSTEC Summit on March 30.

In Bangladesh, political circles are still puzzling over an apparent display of Russian prickliness over a minor spat, even as bombs rain down in Ukraine! The Russians recently registered a strong protest against what they saw as a pro-West anti-Moscow narrative in the Bangladeshi media in their coverage of the war in Ukraine.

LUCKNOW: After the humiliating performance in UP Assembly polls, Mayawati is giving a facelift to party organisation with an eye on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. After a review meeting held on March 27, BSP national President Mayawati appointed her brother Anand as national vice-president and nephew Akash as the powerful national coordinator.

Akhilesh Yadav needs no introduction. But in the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha, he is a newcomer, just like Yogi Adityanath was in 2017. Yogi remained a non-member of the assembly the entire five years he was CM the first time, just like Akhilesh Yadav when he was Chief Minister from 2012-2017.

Two-day workers strike hit normalcy in many parts across India on March 28-29 that were reverberated with shouts of the striking workers demanding scraping of anti-worker policies of the Modi government. Even many government employees participated despite the threat of Essential Services management Act (ESMA) and the orders against their participating in the strike by judiciary and governments, and also many workers affiliated with Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) that being pro-government central trade union did not participate in the general strike. The echo of the strike even reached in front of the Parliament of India in the form of protest by several political parties in opposition, and even suspension of business notice was given in Rajya Sabha to discuss the two-day nationwide strike called “Bharat Bandh”. All these indicate that the echo of the demands will be heard for a long time to come as the struggle enters next stage.

The BJP has reposed faith in the incumbent chief ministers in all the four states where it won in the recently concluded Assembly elections. Whether it was a coincidence or by design, the big picture is clear: the party high command did not want to disturb the winning formula in these states. The earlier practice has been to nominate a new face. The decisions indicate that the party preferred continuity, stability, and youth.

The frequency of elections has lately gained centre stage, with voices rising against the prevailing practice of holding continuous elections in one or other part of the country. In that context, the idea of simultaneous elections — holding elections for all three tiers of government together ­— is being pushed as a comparatively efficient practice.

US President Joe Biden seems to have fouled up his game plan and unwittingly given some Belgian chocolate to Russian president Vladimir Putin for whom a perfect tornado has been forming up.

The discourse that arose in the Supreme Court in January this year about the creation of an Indian Environment Services has its origins in a report by a high-level committee that was headed by former Cabinet Secretary T.S.R. Subramanian. The committee was established in August 2014 to suggest amendments to six laws related to the environment. The committee in its report tried to balance the imperatives of development that cause the least damage to the environment. To formulate the report, the committee had consulted with related stakeholders.