We present our alphabet of 2020, pulling in everything you'll remember about this year we'd rather forget.
The situation in Greece worsened with banks closed for a 2nd week.
Claude Arpi, who spent 10 days in the Land of the Dragon, tells us how Bhutan is different from the rest of the world.
Claude Arpi, who spent 10 days in the Land of the Dragon, tells us how Bhutan is different from the rest of the world.
The Congress chief hit out at the BJP's ideological mentor, the RSS, alleging that it was a "male chauvinist organisation" and did not have women in it, thus cannot do what the Congress can for women.
Under siege, Nitish plans to tweak Bihar's anti-booze law
The estimates of national income and growth do not pass the 'smell test'.
Greek proposals hailed as "a positive step forward".
The economy can't grow without increasing electrification, which requires more power plants, and given coal is the cheapest form of fuel and is abundant, it makes sense that India is looking to boost the use of the fuel.
'Islamic State has declared that the liberation of Islamic Xinjiang from China is an objective. Beijing may well find that Pakistan is unable to assist in any meaningful way,' says China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
Without some firmer pledge of debt relief, neither Greece nor the IMF is likely to accept a deal
''I am not going to force anyone to watch movies. If they want to, they can come and watch.' 'I want to give them the choice that everyone has in the rest of the country.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on accused the Gandhis of disrupting Parliament to avenge defeat in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
'Gwadar has the potential to facilitate PLAN's operations in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.' 'Reports of China setting up electronic eavesdropping posts at Gwadar to monitor US and Indian naval activity and shipping traffic through the Straits of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea lend credence to this,' says former RA&W officer Jayadeva Ranade.
The world's largest cash transfer programme has eliminated around 40 million ghost connections
'Modi, with his sharply honed political savvy and undoubted grasp of international affairs, is a past master at taking the measure of world leaders.' 'He would be the last person to think of the unpredictable and not too well-regarded Trump as the mediator,' says B S Raghavan.
ndia has said it is ready to sign the global trade deal as early as next month if other WTO members agree to its demand for concessions on food subsidies.
'The choice of Dhoka La for the intrusion by Chinese troops is significant and suggests a twin objective of pressuring Thimpu to allow Beijing to establish an embassy there and reinforcing Chinese claims on Arunachal Pradesh,' warns former RA&W officer Jayadev Ranade.
'As the interest rates rise, people are going to say why should I be taking big risks when I can get 4 to 5 per cent in a bank account.' 'So, I think you have to change your thinking.' 'You need to look at the balance sheet, look at dividends.' 'These issues that have been ignored.'
The government will announce minimum support prices for kharif.
'India is part of our strategic and economic future,' says Richard Rahul Verma, the first Indian American to be appointed US Ambassador to India.
There are signs of China's external behaviour becoming more aggressive in the coming years. If that happens, strategic implications for neighbours having territorial disputes with China can become deeper and imperatives can rise for the former to counteract, says D S Rajan
Noting that oil prices had gone down after the BJP-led government came to power in May 2014, before they went up, Prasad said it is a problem whose solution is not in its hands.
Honest tax payers need not worry about the new black money law, says finance minister Arun Jaitley.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
'The debate, by being mostly in Hindi, lost much of its educative relevance to the southern states.' 'All the prime minister's debating skills and oratorical prowess went over the heads of the South Indian audience,' points out B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
'You cannot treat workers like beggars.'
The fact that the US dollar has become the world's preferred reserve currency is now the core of global financial crisis, says Mohan Guruswamy.
The Congress chief gave 'F' to the Modi government for agriculture, foreign policy and job creation, and 'A+' to the prime minister for slogan creation and self promotion.
What will it take to get India's poor broadband penetration to be seen as a problem and not as a condition, thus enabling real, serious e-commerce to take off in India?
'Notwithstanding the realisation among the Indian leadership to build up its navy for the force's expanding role, the Indian Navy was allocated only 15% of the interim defence budget presented in Parliament in February 2019.' 'The outlay for the navy's capital acquisition is not even adequate to meet its committed liabilities,' points out Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
An International Olympic Committee report on the three cities wanting to host the 2020 Summer Olympics indicated there was no clear favourite among the bids from Madrid, Tokyo and Istanbul.
It asked all nations to work together to expedite the adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism in the UN General Assembly without any further delay.
Communist China has recently developed a great expertise in 'soul reincarnation', feels Claude Arpi
'No right thinking student of politics can name one state where the BJP gains in double digits.'
The GST will replace more than a dozen levies central and state levies, including central excise duty, service tax and central sales tax as well as VAT on sale of goods and entry tax, to make movement of goods seamless across 1.3 billion market.
'It is important to note that American officials were trying their best to use the Taliban for their oil games till December 1997 when Mullah Ghous was invited to America. State Department officials did not show any interest in capturing or killing Osama bin Laden even at that time.'
The announcement of the formation of the BRICS bank will have as much an impact about how the non-G7 countries manage their economies and their foreign reserves, as it does on the intellectual discourse. The development priorities and agenda which was hitherto set by western experts responding mostly to western priorities and notions will now have to compete with an intellectual tradition that is and can be very different, says Mohan Guruswamy.
The new PDP chief will have to work hard to keep everyone in the state happy.
CCTVs will readily be accepted as evidence by courts of law, whereas the evidence produced through spy cams always run the risk of being questioned as being a work of photography trick, says S Murlidharan
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