On June 10, Saudi-Qatar-Kuwait backed Sunni jihadis led by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, a terrorist released from an American detention camp in Iraq in 2009, seized the oil-rich Iraqi city of Mosul, with covert US blessing. The Kurdish peshmerga seized the oil-rich city of Kirkuk on June 12, and announced … Read More
Between July’s Budget and that of February 2015, the nation will get a fair idea of the direction being taken by the ‘Modi Sarkar’. Some broad parameters can be gauged from President Pranab Mukherjee’s address to the joint sitting of Parliament on June 9, where he admitted the chances of … Read More
By making Bhutan his first foreign visit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has demonstrated that firming up troubled or neglected relationships will be a major priority of his regime, a point emphasised by inviting the heads of all SAARC countries and Mauritius to his oath-taking ceremony on May 26. The other … Read More
Narendra Modi’s ascent as Prime Minister has raised high expectations of judicial reforms and improved systems of justice delivery, all of which deserve high priority as the new regime sets its house in order and begins to deliver on public expectations. At the top of the list is the manner … Read More
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, with a wish-list and without revealing her mind on issue-based support to the regime, which is short of numbers to pass crucial legislations in the Rajya Sabha. Setting aside the frostiness that had crept into the BJP-AIADMK … Read More
A recurrent theme during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s marathon election campaign was the Pink Revolution and the depletion of the cattle wealth of villages due to subsidised meat exports. Cattle are intrinsic to agriculture and provide a secondary lifeline to marginal farmers, especially in times of distress. Yet the meat … Read More
Narendra Modi Government’s decision to abolish 30 committees of Groups of Ministers (GoMs) and Empowered Groups of Ministers (EGoMs) set up by the Manmohan Singh regime to finalise decisions on a range of issues, has restored the supremacy of the Cabinet in the parliamentary system of Government. The committees, mostly … Read More
Making the first successful move in his campaign promise to recover illegal wealth stashed in havens abroad, Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue during bilateral talks with the Mauritius Prime Minister at Hyderabad House on Tuesday morning. He was accompanied by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Foreign Secretary … Read More
By coming to New Delhi to grace the oath-taking ceremony of the new Prime Minister, the leaders of our seven neighbouring countries not only recognised India’s re-emergence in the comity of nations after a dark decade in which relations with most nations were grievously vitiated, but helped to power the … Read More
According to an apocryphal story about Chandragupta Maurya, the conqueror’s first attempt to seize the kingdom of Magadha failed. Wandering in disguise one night, he came across a mother scolding her son for chewing his bread from the middle. “Eat the outer sides first and then move to the centre … Read More
