This here is the real scam
March-April is Easter time, a time of crucifixion and resurrection. Last year Sitaram Kesri chose to nail Deve Gowda on Easter Sunday. This year the festival passed off without such dramatics, but behind the scenes people were trying to rescue the Bofors case from an untimely grave.
Reforms to power the future
A recent newspaper article on big projects makes the interesting point that the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) had cut down the approved capital expenditure of the Cogentrix project last year. The counter-guarantee on Cogentrix got delayed on account of public interest litigation but the issues seem to have been sorted out by the Supreme Court recently.
Dream and reality
Creation of a separate Uttarakhand state has been the dream of nearly 60 lakh people of the hill region for the last five decades. They were always close to it, but never there. But with the Government promising to table the Bill for the creation of a separate hill state in the next session of Parliament, it's become more or less a reality.
On the firing line
It does not take much reading between the lines to find the prognosis of the second Narasimham Committee report is that the banking sector remains inefficient, unprofitable and structurally flawed. In short, the financial system with four-fifths of its funds flowing through banks is ill-prepared to meet the demands of the domestic economy and the challenges of the global market.
Surely uncoordinated
Some of the recent events in high places have shown that the BJP was wise to moot the idea of a coordination committee for its coalition. Unfortunately, however, it has betrayed an alarming degree of uncoordination in its attempts at turning that idea into reality.
Ghazni's best-kept secret
"Provocative Ghauri" was the title of an editorial that appeared on this page earlier this month. Pakistan has named its missiles Ghauri and Ghaznavi with the specific intention of taunting India. These worthies' claims to fame and glorification, in the perception of the Pakistanis, lies in the fact that they were credited with plundering and devastating north-western India time and time again in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
