By Ashis Biswas KOLKATA: In the end, the outcome of the high level Trinamool Congress (TMC) meeting last month was disappointing. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is usually at her attacking best whenever she feels politically cornered. There was no better time like the present, if she wanted to take on her critics, who have been tearing into her over the multi-crore rupees Saradha chit […]
Mumbai: It’s exactly 125 years since the first oil deposits were discovered in India. The big push to India’s oil and gas sector came after the early 1990s, when it was opened up to private players. Yet, the sector is still dominated by public sector undertakings (PSUs) such as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) in oil and gas exploration and production; […]
In the wake of yet another poor earnings report, Sprint is laying off thousands of workers. The telecom giant said it would cut loose about 2,000 workers as part of a cost-cutting program that aims to turn around the ailing company. In summary, Sprint reported operating revenues of $8.5 billion for its second fiscal quarter of 2014, which represents a $192 million operating loss. Marcelo Claure, the […]
By S. Sethuraman Tamil Nadu political scene is now astir, with BJP and other state-level parties looking ambitiously for a hold on power through new alignments in the run-up to the 2016 Assembly elections, and thus hoping to open a new chapter in the State’s chequered politics, hitherto dominated by two Dravidian majors alternately. Undoubtedly, political space dramatically opened up in the wake of the […]
By Garga Chatterjee Convicted war criminal Ghulam Azam is dead. He died last week. He was 91. In the subcontinent, many political figures enjoy interesting lives after death. There is a peculiar way in which death accords respectability even to the worst scum on earth. Important people declare somber condolences. Concrete memorials come up overnight in the middle of the street. The number of such memorials corresponds […]
From Pradeep Kapoor LUCKNOW: The elections for 10 Rajya Sabha seats from UP next month will decide future alliances by different political parties for 2017 assembly polls in the state. At present all the major political parties are busy in giving final shape to list of candidates but leadership of various political parties are under pressure to accommodate important leaders for future politics. It would […]
By Nora Chopra The much awaited reshuffle of the Congress party is likely to be deferred indefinitely till the organizational elections next year. Disillusionment is fast taking over within the party in the wake of a defeat after defeat since 2011 when state after state started falling like nine pins. The worst was of course the Lok Sabha polls where the party faced a defeat like never […]
By Amulya Ganguli The writing is on the wall. To save itself, the Congress has no option but to bid farewell to the Nehru-Gandhi family. Therefore, the 100-odd supporters of the party who recently clamoured for the elevation of Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra to senior party positions are mistaken. If the 129-year-old party is to have a future, it has to make a new beginning under a new […]
By Praful Bidwai With its impressive performance in the Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party has clearly reconfirmed its status, established by the Lok Sabha elections, as the principal pole or central point of reference in Indian politics. Behind its latest success, and not least its marginalisation of established regional parties in the two states, lie medium- and long-term factors which are likely to […]
By Harihar Swarup Will Congress fade away? Will the 128-year old party, whose leaders fought for independence, a party having deep roots, just wither away? Judging by its performance in the Lok Sabha elections in May this year and, its dismal performance in the state assembly elections, latest being Maharashtra and Haryana, the future of the Congress looks gloomy. But it is not as gloomy as prophets […]
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An unfortunate war of words and articles has erupted between the CPI and the CPI(M), which can only cause immense damage to the communist movement in the country. What makes it all the more saddening is that the angry exchange has come at a time when both the parties should be bending their energies towards strengthening the left, secular and democratic forces […]
By Nora Chopra Rahul Gandhi will contest the party president post next year. Before July 2015, Sonia Gandhi is likely to abdicate In favour of her son and will hold the post of some kind of local guardian of the party depending on the name being given to her position on the liens of the kind of a Marg Darshak in the BJP. In a meeting with […]
Russell Brand shares his views at the Occupy Wall Street Rally in New York Photo: REX FEATURES Oh dear, what a fusillade of hatred against poor old Brandy Wandy. I have before me a slew of Sunday papers and in almost all there is a broadside against Russell Brand, the crinkle-tressed comedian. Commentators from Left and Right denounce him as a prancing, prinking, pompadoured popinjay; a know-nothing narcissist […]
The Islamic finance industry…boasts $1.6 trillion in bankingsystem assets Islamic finance grows twice as fast as traditional banks MUSCAT, 2 days ago Islamic finance is growing at twice the rate of the traditional banking industry in its core markets, which include Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey and the GCC countries, according to an expert. The industry currently boasts $1.6 trillion in banking system assets, said Mohammed Mahfoodh Al Ardhi, […]
Aabar Investments is demanding a hefty premium for its minority stake in Malaysia’s No.4 bank, sources say, as the Abu Dhabi state fund leverages on its amplified role in a $22 billion merger that will create Southeast Asia’s fourth-largest lender. When the Malaysian stock exchange last week barred the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) from voting on a plan to merge CIMB Group Holdings, RHB Capital Bhd and […]
By Kalyani Shankar The BJP is jubilant after its spectacular success in Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly polls this week. Coming as it does on the heels of the recent impressive Lok Sabha victory, the BJP can claim that the momentum as well as the Modi magic is intact. The Congress on the other hand is demoralized further after its humiliating defeat in both the states. There is […]
By Amulya Ganguli As always, the electorate has sent a clear message to every party in the just concluded elections. For the BJP, the memo is that the regional parties cannot be ignored, as the Maharashtra results have shown. It was the same lesson which the BJP learnt in the parliamentary polls when it could not breach the regional fortresses of the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, […]
NEW DELHI: Eighty-eight infrastructure and industrial projects, involving investment of nearly Rs 3 lakh crore – which is more than the Centre’s budgeted income tax collections for the current financial year – have become operational over the past few months. This will help in adding jobs and easing pressure on banks, which had lent to the projects that got stuck due to lack of government clearances. […]
By Harihar Swarup Results in assembly election in Maharashtra are on expected lines: no party got majority and the BJP emerged as the single largest party, having secured only 121 seats in 288-member house, falling short of 22 seats to get majority. But in Haryana it was a real surprise: few expected clear majority for the BJP when in the last election the saffron party could […]
There were six in contention; four were dropped, and one became the Chosen One: The Rafale. In French, ‘Rafale’ poetically means a ‘sudden gust of wind.’ It was one of the six fighter aircraft in competition for the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft, MMRCA, when the Indian Air Force wanted to acquire 126 polyvalent fighter planes. In April 2011, the IAF shortlisted two birds — […]
|By Rashidul Bari| When I was writing Grameen Social Business Model, a book detailing the search for a weapon to use against poverty and terrorism, Malala Yousafzai played a key, but kind of secondary, role, a supporting character. But I kind of found, when I was writing another article, “Why do they Hate Obama?” that the force of Malala kept trying to take over, kept trying to […]
By Nora Chopra Congress is supposed to have conceded defeat both in Haryana and Maharashtra even before the results are out. The general secretaries in-charge of Haryana and Maharashtra Shakeel Ahmad and Mohan Prakash have submitted their reports to the Congress president Sonia Gandhi and are supposed to have made the submission that the Congress does not stand any chance to win in any of the two […]
Hyderabad: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan has said the central bank is in talks with the Centre to set up a financial resolution authority (FRA). “We really need a financial resolution authority so that we can close financial institutions in trouble, without necessarily merging those and taking the losses. We need to clean institutions…while resurrecting those functioning well. FRA will be the entity that […]
NEW DELHI: To expedite infrastructure projects — road and rail — along the border with China for strategic reasons and also for better connectivity, principal secretary to Prime Minister has called a meeting of top officials of key ministries such as defence, rail and road, head of Border Roads Organization (BRO), national security adviser and others on Thursday. Sources said the agenda of the meeting to […]
