Incredible India's!

What does India want? To be counted . India is the world's fastest growing major economy. By 2050 it will be the planet's most populous nation. As it attempts economic transformation, India needs everything from infrastructure to energy and education — the latter two imports which already dominate its trade with Australia. But more than any material demands, what India wants is recognition — as a country poised to become the world's third largest economy, and a power in its own right. As Malcolm Turnbull visits India for meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and business leaders, he is talking up the "tremendous opportunity" the nation's growth represents for Australia. Taken for granted? When Indian and Australian politicians stand up to give speeches in each others' countries, you bet on hearing "India and Australia have much in common ...". Perhaps. But "cricket, Commonwealth and curry" as an old ad...

Another year. Another controversy surrounding the National Film Awards. On Friday, 7 April 2017, was initially announced that Akshay Kumar’s outing as naval officer Rustom Pavri in last year’s Rustom has won the A-lister his first Best Actor mention at the 64th National Film Awards. The actor even took to Twitter to thank the jury for the honour and to dedicate the win to his wife. A few hours later, the 64th National Film Awards 2017 jury head, director Priyadarshan, said, “Akshay has won the Best Actor award for both Airlift and Rustom. For technical reasons, only Rustom is mentioned in the list of awardees. But he has given contrasting and extremely sensitive performances in both Airlift and Rustom, and we thought it was only fair to honour him for both.” Interestingly, Priyadarshan has helmed four Akshay starrers, including Hera Pheri. How does an actor win an award for two performances? And, if the criterion was an actor’s range ov...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=918xbxYPxE4 Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina met in Delhi today, signing 22 agreements including a 500 million dollar line of credit to Dhaka for the purchase of military hardware, the first such agreement of its kind between the two countries. India also extended another 4.5 billion dollars in a line of credit to Bangladesh for infrastructure projects, taking the total line of credit extended by India to over 8 billion dollars over the last few years. However, there was no pact on the Teesta water sharing treaty, a big disappointment for Dhaka in particular since West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is still opposed to it. The Teesta river runs through Bengal into Bangladesh and the treaty allows for 50:50 water sharing during the lean season. But Ms Banerjee feels it will be detrimental to her state's interests. In his statement to the media, Prime Minister Modi said, "I am very ha...

The passage of the four GST Bills in the Lok Sabha is significant for two reasons. The first is political because it does appear that while the government was always open to taking suggestions, the opposition was keen on shouting it down by bringing in other extraneous issues. Hence, getting it through the House is satisfying. The second is that it now looks likely that the government will meet the target of 1 July for implementation which is what was intended to begin with. There is hence reason to feel sanguine about this development. Getting acquiescence from all states is a major achievement but the task really begins once it is implemented. The demonetisation drive, it may be remembered, had arguments on both sides from the point of view of ideology, but it was almost universally accepted that the implementation was far from satisfactory. This has always been a problem with Indian policies where we slip on implementation even though we are astute in design. As a diversio...