Opinions and Editorials

The Reserve Bank of India, the country's paramount monetary authority, is to conduct its regular review of monetary and credit policy on Tuesday.

Why did the Congress-NCP win Maharashtra? If you say "Raj Thackeray," you have a point. After all his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena won in 13 Assembly constituencies that would have otherwise returned Shiv Sainiks. Raj also played spoiler elsewhere — in a full 40-45 constituencies, bellowed the bellicose BJP spokesperson.

Reports that several surrendered Maoists in Andhra Pradesh are being hounded by their former comrades, and are going underground in fear, brings to mind the guru of counter-insurgency, Sir Robert Thompson.

WEST BENGAL'S latest contribution to Left-wing political praxis — a mainstream Left government agreeing to get blackmailed by an extreme Left violent movement — has rightly raised questions about governability.

The West Bengal government's decision to 'not oppose' bail of arrested Maoist suspects, in return for a hostage being released, has been widely criticised.

The coyness with which Indian politicians desist from publicly describing Naxalites as terrorists is telling.

With the apparent extension of support of seven independents to the Congress party, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda should now have no difficulty proving his majority in the new state assembly.

RBI's credit policy statement on Tuesday will come in the backdrop of strong signals coming from New Delhi that monetary accommodation should continue for some time until industrial recovery is firmly in place.

It is hard to believe that much of the debate before RBI's credit policy statement on October 27 centres on whether rates should be hiked or not.

Have those of you who are inveterate market watchers ever wondered why the Indian markets tend to go flat for a few days following the Festival of Lights? While most of you will come up with answers relating to market dynamics, global cues and economic fundamentals, I have evolved a homegrown theory entirely unrelated to all these.

A tiny little factoid, many may not know is that India was one of the first countries to adopt family planning at an official level in 1960. Even more interesting is the fact that condoms were first introduced to the country by the Chennai-based TTK Group that imported and sold them here since the 40s.

While developing countries are expected to take adaptive actions to the pollution that has already occurred, mitigation is an inclusive process and it requires innovation.

One thing that has come out of the financial crisis is a new world economic order. Or so at least the many people who dislike America are hoping for. They are still angry about George W Bush, if not the very existence of the US itself.

It is a mantra that every judge, every legal administrator and every politician unerringly cites. The "pendency problem" — or the appallingly large backlog of cases in our Supreme Court, high courts and subordinate courts — is a buzz word that is eloquently used, but rarely accompanied by concrete proposals to reduce the cases that clog our judicial system.

The attack on the Pakistan Army GHQ in Rawalpindi by terrorists and subsequent attacks in other cities have generated a lot of nervousness here and abroad.

Not long ago, even after 1991, there was a time when dispute resolution data were only available with a time-lag of around seven years.

How much credibility does West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee think his state government now has? He might have been partly chastened by the storm of anger caused by the West Bengal government's decision to capitulate miserably to the CPI (Maoist) by accepting, on their terms, the release of a police officer they had kidnapped in a daring raid on a police station — apparently in

K V Kamath, chairman of ICICI Bank, thinks India is a land of opportunity and this is the time to choose the business of aspiration.

It's round two in Afghanistan. Fresh elections scheduled for November 7 follow the confirmation of widespread election fraud in the August 20 presidential elections. President Karzai's 50-plus per cent majority has fallen to 49 per cent with his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, at 31 per cent.

BJP President Rajnath Singh was incensed by commentator Suhel Seth's sharp attack on "joker feudals" who believe they are a law unto themselves.