Glasshouse
The poorer party
The Congress president's Rs 70,000 Burberry jacket may have been the talk of town, but the party itself is in a dire funds crunch. Rahul Gandhi admitted as much at a recent interaction, saying the party's financial strength was 'way below' the BJP's, and that his NRI outreach programmes in the UAE were essentially fund-raisers. Last August, a Delhi-based think-tank said the Congress received Rs 198 crore from corporate donors as opposed to Rs 706 crore for the BJP in the three years from 2012. Rahul is optimistic their war cry of Sachche Din will prevail. "In Gujarat," he said, "we spent less than a tenth of the BJP, yet we got a great response."
Soul sisters
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has never hidden her admiration of Sonia Gandhi. Especially since the latter called to congratulate Didi on her party's win in the February 1 bypoll. Something Mamata reminded unruly Congress MLAs of, telling them about their leader's call. Muscle-flexing and shouting won't work, she told them; Sonia was on her side.
That's rich
The new order in Indian business was on show at Guwahati's Advantage Assam Global Investment Summit on February 3. Seated beside the likes of Mukesh Ambani and Dilip Shanghvi was Patanjali CEO Acharya Balakrishna, whose net worth Forbes estimated at $7.9 billion last year. Among the handful of speakers allowed to speak before the prime minister's inaugural speech, Balakrishna held forth on how to increase farmer incomes tenfold. And here we were talking of just doubling farmer incomes by 2022!
Wandering sadhu
Remember former MP Sadhu Yadav, the estranged brother-in-law of Lalu Prasad Yadav? The falling out with Lalu saw him gravitate towards the Congress in 2009. With the rising tide of Narendra Modi, he met him in 2013, but nothing came of it. A year later, in 2014, he threw in his lot with Jitan Ram Manjhi, then chief minister of Bihar. Recently, he was spotted near Union minister Upendra Kushwaha at a human chain in Patna. What gives?
Labouring the point
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has rid at least one place of the notorious Nooku Kooli extortion, where CPI(M)-affiliated labour unions extract wages from industry but do no work. Vijayan urged police to act strictly against head loaders who pelted stones and blocked ships at Beypore port. It paid off, Beypore port is back on track. Now for the rest of the state.
In a wide-ranging condemnation, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad railed against the BJP government in the Rajya Sabha. He argued that freedom of speech and even freedom of doing business, language the government should appreciate, was being steadily eroded. It's a familiar refrain from Azad.
The Congress president's Rs 70,000 Burberry jacket may have been the talk of town, but the party itself is in a dire funds crunch. Rahul Gandhi admitted as much at a recent interaction, saying the party's financial strength was 'way below' the BJP's, and that his NRI outreach programmes in the UAE were essentially fund-raisers. Last August, a Delhi-based think-tank said the Congress received Rs 198 crore from corporate donors as opposed to Rs 706 crore for the BJP in the three years from 2012. Rahul is optimistic their war cry of Sachche Din will prevail. "In Gujarat," he said, "we spent less than a tenth of the BJP, yet we got a great response."
That's rich
The new order in Indian business was on show at Guwahati's Advantage Assam Global Investment Summit on February 3. Seated beside the likes of Mukesh Ambani and Dilip Shanghvi was Patanjali CEO Acharya Balakrishna, whose net worth Forbes estimated at $7.9 billion last year. Among the handful of speakers allowed to speak before the prime minister's inaugural speech, Balakrishna held forth on how to increase farmer incomes tenfold. And here we were talking of just doubling farmer incomes by 2022!
Wandering sadhu
Remember former MP Sadhu Yadav, the estranged brother-in-law of Lalu Prasad Yadav? The falling out with Lalu saw him gravitate towards the Congress in 2009. With the rising tide of Narendra Modi, he met him in 2013, but nothing came of it. A year later, in 2014, he threw in his lot with Jitan Ram Manjhi, then chief minister of Bihar. Recently, he was spotted near Union minister Upendra Kushwaha at a human chain in Patna. What gives?
Labouring the point
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has rid at least one place of the notorious Nooku Kooli extortion, where CPI(M)-affiliated labour unions extract wages from industry but do no work. Vijayan urged police to act strictly against head loaders who pelted stones and blocked ships at Beypore port. It paid off, Beypore port is back on track. Now for the rest of the state.
In a wide-ranging condemnation, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad railed against the BJP government in the Rajya Sabha. He argued that freedom of speech and even freedom of doing business, language the government should appreciate, was being steadily eroded. It's a familiar refrain from Azad.
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