drskmukherjee

West Bengal's Bhowanipore, along with Assembly seats of Shamshergunj and Jangipur, will go to polls tomorrow, September 30th. I will concentrate on Bhowanipore constituency because the TMC supremo and CM of West Bengal for last two decades, Mamata Banerjee is contesting here after her sensational defeat with a slender margin by Suvendu Adhikari at Nandigram.  Bhowanipore can be seen as mini-India because it is as diverse as an Assembly seat can get. It may lie in the heart of Kolkata but it could pass off as mini-India. Such is the demographic phenomenon of Bhowanipore that a large chunk of its population comprises non-Bengalis: Sikhs, Gujaratis, Marwaris, Marathis, Odiyas and Biharis. Many say this was why Mamata, after registering successive victories from Bhowanipore in 2011 and 2016, chose to contest the 2021 election from Nandigram instead: she feared the non-Bengali votes would all go to the BJP following the aggressive campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minist...

We were getting the feed from political analysts and party insiders about failures of Amarinder’s second stint as chief minister, mainly due to non-performance and his confrontation with the Gandhi family for not toeing the party line. All these reasons led to growing dissidents and turning other party members against him. Siddhu took full advantage of the situation. Rahul and Priyanka took the call on his ouster after 40 party MLAs  wrote to Congress president Sonia Gandhi a few days ago. Congress MLAs from Punjab were continuously calling on them to change the leadership in Punjab over Amarinder’s alleged non-performance. The Congress Legislative Party (CLP) was unanimous to leave on Sonia Gandhi to ask Capt Amrinder Singh to step down. And it was done. Sunil Kumar Jakhar is the front runner for the CM candidate. Jakhar even tweeted to congratulate Rahul Gandhi for his bold decision.  It must be known that in spite of his great regards for Capt Amrinder Singh, Sunil Jakhar, ...

After Nehru, Congress did the worst to  perpetuate his  family holding over the party to wrest power by killing internal democracy in the party. The very democratic spirit within the party was conspicuously murdered to promote the family owned leadership. The Nehru family went on promoting her longevity to run the party. The same practice is still continuing. The ego of the family is so big that they would not learn from the shameless condition of the party is in now. The sycophancy further distorted the reality when the leaders became answerable to a family than the people of India. That is why today the congress party is looking at failures in every state and national election, saving its face only with a select few who are able to win votes despite the central leadership and not because of it. Today, there is no reason left for an Indian voter to consider the Congress Party apart from nostalgia. They have simply failed to deliver on the expectations of both Bharat and India...

As per India's budget documents for the FY 2021-22, India's direct overseas aid stood at ₹18,154 crore (US$2.5 billion) which also includes concessional loans. India also extended the credit worth $30.66 billion to several countries for their developmental projects. India has set up 'Indian Agency for Partnership in Development', as a part of the Ministry of External Affairs (India) to channelize aid to recipient nations. Out of ₹18,154 crore Rs 7,148 crore was earmarked later revised to Rs 5,369 crore as aid to countries in its neighbourhood as well as in Africa and Latin America.  Bhutan has been allocated a maximum of Rs 3,004 crore while Iran Rs 100 crore for Chabahar port project. Nepal has been alloted Rs 992, Afghanistan pegged at Rs 350 crore and Myanmar at Rs 400 crore. Both Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will get Rs 200 crore each, while an amount of Rs 250 crore has been set aside for the Maldives . Rs 300 crore has been allocated for African countries , Rs ...