West Bengal was the second-most industrialised state in terms of value added and first in terms of number of factories and employment even in the mid-1960s. With a severe and long process of deindustrialisation, it lost its primacy.
Attempt to suicide will soon be not a punishable offence with the government deciding to delete Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code from the statute book to decriminalise it after getting the backing of 22 states and union territories, the Rajya Sabha was told on Wednesday.
"My impression is that India can expect cooperation from China on the issue of declaring Masood Azhar, leader of JeM, as terrorist who should face trial in India, if India in the UN concentrated more on him than seeking to censure Pakistan as a sponsor of terror," Swamy said.
Having focussed excessively on the Congress, and continuously drawing a Modi-Rahul parallel as if it were the sole selling point, the BJP has lost sight of the regional parties that are seeking to take the centre-stage, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley appealed to parties to rise above partisan considerations to support it.
The stakes are high and it is not certain that slow-moving foreign office bureaucracies can measure up to the challenges being thrown up, says Hardeep S Puri.
'She has to get the funds, cut through bureaucratic flab, speed up modernisation, ensure planned acquisitions stick to timelines, make organisational changes and ensure the military is capable of performing the task that it is given,' says Brigadier S K Chatterjee (retd).
There are many firsts in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha speech which constitute the cardinal elements of a strategy which has all the potential to serve as the mainspring of the polity for the rest of the century, says B S Raghavan.
While China's nationalistic tabloid Global Times said India should be taught a 'bitter lesson', another official newspaper, China Daily, said India should look in the mirror.
Despite their depleted numbers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday extended an olive branch to the opposition, saying he would take them along in decision-making and would work for development of all sections, including Muslims.
Punjab Governor Shivraj Patil was the first who expressed his desire to put in his papers even before Modi government took charge, but he was told by Congress leaders not to do so as it would then put pressure on the others to do the same, reports Anita Katyal.
The most serious recommendations to change the financial year came in the years preceded by deficient rainfall. The Jha committee was formed after droughts in 1979-80 and 1982-83, reports Rishika Pardikar/IndiaSpend.
On display was India's military might and cultural diversity.
'China's growing nexus with Pakistan and the two countries' unresolved territorial disputes with India continue to pose a formidable national security threat to India,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'The people of the state can be won over by love, and not by swords.'
Meet the cleanliness warrior from Nagaland who is cleaning up the holy ghats of Varanasi...
A war hero looks back at the men and the moments that forged India's greatest military victory.
Nearly two decades ago, then defence minister George Fernandes said: 'China has built roads up to the border, while there has been negligence on India's part.' Since Fernandes uttered these brave words, what has been done on the Indian side? The Modi Sarkar is apparently trying, but little has been achieved so far, says Claude Arpi.
'Judging by the conduct of two governors of Kerala and one governor from Kerala, Congressmen treated Raj Bhavan as a transition point before taking a flight back into active politics.'
'The fabric of democracy is fraying,' says T V R Shenoy. 'It is being attacked not just by terrorists in Kashmir or by zealots in the North-East, but is being ripped apart even in Allahabad, in the Hindi heartland.'
The decision to not attend the forum attended by 28 heads of state and 130 national delegations is a clear break from its usual policy of going along with the crowd.
'Their failure to take Siachen is an embarrassment to the Pakistan army -- and let them live with it. Our army's shoulders are broad enough to endure the challenge.'
This quiet assertion of China has allowed various smaller countries of South Asia to play China off against India. Most states in the region now use the China card to balance against the predominance of India. Forced to exist between their two giant neighbours, the smaller states have responded with a careful balancing act, says Harsh V Pant.
'He was believed to finish his own work in an hour and spend the remainder of the time walking from one office to another, sitting down with the harried junior staff and helping them sort out the problems they were working on.'
