State scan : HONEY TRAP SCANDAL MP Power Elite Exposed

Shweta Vijay Jain (48) is at the centre of the sexand- blackmail racket that was busted in Indore on the night of September 17. A former BJP youth wing office bearer from Sagar district, Shweta subverted the system virtually at will. She started the blackmailing game alone soon after the BJP came to power 16 years ago, and, over the years, managed to attract scores of women and call girls with her magnetic charm. Her dazzling life style and fabulous contacts in politics and bureaucracy beckoned women such as Aarti Dayal, Shweta Swapnil Jain, Barkha Soni and Monica Yadav to tread the slutty road to opulence. They had travelled quite a long risky distance.

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Master mind : ADHIR CHOWDHURY : A local phenomenon on a national stage

Adhir Chowdhury is the name of a phenomenon. Two mighty Chief Ministers, Buddhadev Bhattacharya of the Left Front and Mamata Banerjee of Trinamool Congress (popularly TMC), pulled out all the stops to crush this political ‘upstart’.. But, defying a chakravyuh of the Left parties, the 40-year-old Adhir got elected to the assembly from Nabagram constituency in 1996. Three years later, in 1999, he took up a huge challenge by contesting from Baharampur Lok Sabha constituency, then considered unwinnable by the Congress, and since remains unbeaten for five consecutive terms.

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Personality : The new logistics MESSIAH

Short in size, tall in stature. That aptly sums up N Sivasailam, the first special secretary to be appointed for logistics in the Ministry of Commerce on November 2018, the special arm created for the first time by the government. Though there has been a clamor for a sepa-rate ministry of logistics to catapult the Indian economy into a much higher orbit, it took the Narendra Modi-led National Democractic Alliance (NDA) regime almost five long years to berth this long-felt need. Why this 1985 Karnataka cadre was picked for this niche slot is a million-dollar question that remains unanswered to this day. 

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Book extract : The Future of China-India Relations

CHINA and India are rising almost simultaneously. Their bilateral relationship is of critical significance to the regional and world pattern, but this relationship is very complicated. With the advancement of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in South Asia and India Ocean Region, India’s strategic suspicions of China have accumulated. Indian strategists government believe that there is some geostrategic design behind the BRI. India has adopted opposing, delaying, and hedging measures toward different parts of the initiative. Donglang (Doklam) standoff revealed India’s strategic ambition and its dissatisfaction towards China’s regional policies.

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Bric-a-brac : Prabhu flying high

WHEN Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to drop Suresh Prabhu, technocrat-turned politicians, in his first cabinet, politicians cited many reasons. Lack of mass connect is one of the oft-cited reasons for Prabhu’s exit. Prabhu led the Railway Ministry for three years and the Commerce Ministry for two years. The chartered accountant-turned politician has held several portfolios in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, too, as a representative of the Shiv Sena. Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, he joined the BJP and became the Railways Minister in 2014. Prabhu even offered his resignation owing moral responsibility for a couple of rail accidents during his tenure. He was shifted to Commerce and Civil Aviation in 2017.

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Bric-a-brac : Himachal scrambles for money

WHAT happens when a state has less income and more expenditure? Obviously, the state is in a perpetual financial crisis. Such is the case of Himachal Pradesh. The tiny state led by BJP nominated Chief Minister and Finance Minister Jai Ram Thakur is in deep financial crisis.  The state has two main sources of revenue: GST (41% of revenue) and State Excise (21%). Finance experts don’t know how to generate more revenue. The total expenditure of the state is Rs. 44,388 crore whereas revenue is Rs. 35,024 crore. So, net deficit is Rs. 9,364 crore. There are no jobs available and Himachal Pradesh is ranked 6th among all states in unemployment. On top of all this, it is learnt that Hindu propagandists who are influenced by Arya Samaj are thinking to make Himachal a dry state.

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