India looks less equal to China than 5 years ago, the strategic alliance with the US is hobbled by trade, and Pakistan is looking anything but chastened by Balakot. What has gone wrong? asks Shekhar Gupta.
'A CEO is successful if he is able to retain the confidence of his shareholders. And the shareholders of India Inc have backed their prime minister-CEO to the hilt,' says Sudhir Bisht.
Monday's surprise meeting is an admission by the Bharatiya Janata Party that their purported strategy of hoping to ride the popular 'Modi wave' in a Tamil Nadu without Jaya and a bed-ridden Karunanidhi does not have much chance of success, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in publicly traded Adani group stocks through Mauritius-based 'opaque' investment funds by partners of promoter family, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) alleged on Thursday. The fresh allegations by an organisation funded by likes of George Soros and Rockefeller Brothers Fund come months after a US short seller wiped away close to $150 billion in value of Adani group stocks with allegations of accounting fraud, stock price manipulation and improper use of tax havens by the ports-to-energy conglomerate run by billionaire Gautam Adani. Adani group has denied all allegations. Citing review of files from multiple tax havens and internal Adani Group emails, OCCRP said its investigation found at least two cases where the "mysterious" investors bought and sold Adani stock through such offshore structures.
Gujarat has topped with a score of 71.14% on ease of doing business list.
The acquittal of all 67 accused in the Naroda Gam case in which 11 members of a minority community were killed amounts to "murder" of justice and the verdict will only embolden rioters, said some of the survivors of the communal violence.
'Do you want Tipu or Savarkar? Where should we send Tipu Sultan? What did Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda do? In the same way he should be knocked out and sent off'
'This pandemic has given him a new platform to perform,' says a member of the government. 'He should feel lucky that he has got an opportunity now to demonstrate to the world his original talent.' 'He needs a visionary script to perform.' Sheela Bhatt reports on the politics of the pandemic.
The movie presents a version of Modi that the bhakts wants the rest of us to see, feels Utkarsh Mishra.
Praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi for successfully carrying out the Yoga Day celebrations in Delhi, ally Shiv Sena today said 'commodifying' Yoga will not harm the ancient practice, instead it will increase tourism and generate employment.
'Countries like Israel said openly that they will hunt people down. We have no such policy.' 'We have always been following the legal process of getting them (people wanted by India) through extradition.'
'They are not tom-tomming what a great thing the Supreme Court decision is.' 'If they say it was a great thing, the public will react because people suffered and are still suffering.'
Theoretically, Modi, who understood corporate finance, committed no crime by raising debt to fund a growing business. In fact, he did a tidy job of it, but his operation started to see the ground underneath it give way in January 2018. A fascinating excerpt from Pavan C Lall's Flawed: The Rise And Fall Of India's Diamond Mogul Nirav Modi.
M R Venkatesh, chartered accountant turned political commentator tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com that Modi's war is not against the opposition parties or the Congress but against the bureaucracy and the establishment.
'The upper caste elite's belief that they are casteless is a belief that is available only to the upper castes. Because all the lower castes are reminded by society every day what their caste is.'
The BJP seems wanting to return to a 'Tamil Hindutva' agenda for elections in Tamil Nadu, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Consider Mrs Gandhi's view of her opponents: Traitors, anti-nationals, rumour-mongers.' Does the spirit of the Emergency-era Indira Gandhi still rule India? asks Vir Sanghvi.
The government on Friday announced that no tax will be charged on overseas spending of up to Rs 7 lakh in a year using debit or credit as it looked to douse backlash from its earlier decision of levying TCS on all spending. The government had earlier this week brought overseas credit card spending under Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS). This meant that any spending using credit cards overseas would attract a 20 per cent tax from July 1.
'I am more worried about the BJP as I see lot of marginalisation of top leaders in the BJP.' 'I am really worried about the terminal decline of the Congress. And the greatest tragedy is that there are so many good people in the Congress.' 'It will take a couple of years, but this is the most appropriate time for a new political party and leadership to emerge.'
With its gaze steadily fixed on the well-being of its people, the government is going about taking all the imperative measures that need to be taken to beat back the pandemic, observes B S Raghavan.
It is hard to tell whether the prime minister is unable to confront the reality or so supremely confident in his abilities that he can convince the rest of us that the reality is different from our perception of it, observes Aakar Patel.
Cleaning up India's grubby business climate is top of the agenda for both regulators and the government.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf lists 10 ways in his life has improved under the first Modi Sarkar.
Speaking at industry association CII's annual session, PM Modi said the government has taken tough steps to fight the coronavirus pandemic and has also taken care of the economy. "On the one hand we have to safe the lives of our people and on the other hand we have to stabilise the economy and speed up the economy," he said. "Yes, we will definitely get our growth back," he asserted.
While the economy seems to be on a firm growth path, the fight against inflation is not over yet. Shaktikanta Das seems to be in no hurry. After playing well through a five-year Test match, he doesn't want to get out hit wicket, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Modi government has to come up with a robust economic agenda to impress the masses.
With Mukesh Ambani taking over Network 18, the space for disseminating a diverse range of views could shrink, feels Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.
'This means the remedy will be worse than the disease. The thing which you want to avoid will happen.'
Perhaps the calculation is that economic recovery will have been achieved before the next general election comes around, but such assumptions can come unstuck if current directions are not reversed quickly, cautions T N Ninan.
The Congress on Thursday objected to Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar deleting some portions of Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge's speech from official records, saying he used no unparliamentary words and some of the expressions he employed were earlier used even by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
'This incident offers ammunition to those inside the US government and elsewhere who question the wisdom of trusting India, so it will have a lasting consequence no matter how it is managed.'
An article said Modi's decision to provide e-visas for Chinese nationals is inadequate and it should be extended to business and work visas.
It is natural that the world wants to talk directly to India and the world wants to hear directly from the horse's mouth about India's policies and potential. It matters if you hear it from the leader: Modi
Narendra Modi represents a change that embraces efficient delivery mechanisms, integrity, innovative solutions to governance and a welcome discourse away from Hindutva and Pakistan, says Jaya Jaitly.
Most brokerages have maintained their Sensex and Nifty targets as they believe there is little room for further re-rating in the backdrop of weak earnings.
If Mr Modi has to win, he must convince the people of this country how his reforms improved the quality of their lives.
The challenge is to enhance opportunities for people to generate livelihoods through entrepreneurship, both big and small, argues R Jagannathan.
The prime minister initiated the discussion on the move, which was announced last month, with the ministers after the meeting of the Union Cabinet ended in New Delhi.
The state has allowed industrial units in special economic zones (SEZs) to lay off workers without government's sanction, regardless of the number of workers
