Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s maiden budget is remarkable for blindsiding economic gurus of national and international stature with gratuitous advice for a ‘closure sale’ of the public sector. It invited the private sector to step up and contribute to economic growth, but did not bend over backwards to solicit … Read More
In a move that took the sponsors of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) by surprise, Moscow quietly rushed Su-25 fighter jets to Iraq and is now helping to shore up the beleaguered regime of Nouri al-Maliki. This unexpected tit-for-tat for the formal division of Ukraine was doubtless … Read More
The spectre of a looming Congress-NCP defeat in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, due later this year, most likely provoked the Dwarka Sankaracharya’s vituperative attack on the Sai Baba of Shirdi. The election in the nation’s financial capital is a matter of survival for both parties, as well as for Raj … Read More
New Delhi district metropolitan magistrate Gomati Manocha’s decision on June 26 to summon Congress party president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi in the case of questionable takeover of the real estate of National Herald and allied newspapers owned by The Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), calls for matching probes … Read More
The Union Government’s decision on Wednesday evening to defer any proposed hike in the price of natural gas until the issue has been discussed with all stakeholders over the next three months is wise, especially since it benefitted only one corporate house which was behind the pressure. Media reports … Read More
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
