Coming to the topic, Bollywood bigwigs, except for Akshay Kumar, are yet to make any donations towards Coronavirus relief.

Akshay had recently donated a whopping amount of Rs 25 crores. But the big Khans in Bollywood are taking their own sweet time to help the cause.

Consequently, netizens are mounting pressure on Bollywood superstars, asking them to help the country in these tough times. It remains to be seen if other top stars in the industry will respond in a positive manner.

Akshay Kumar can't figure out why some people will not take the concept of lockdown seriously in the time of COVID-19 pandemic, as is apparent in a new video the Bollywood superstar has posted.

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By Arul Louis

New York, Oct 31 (SocialNews.XYZ) A politically fractured House of Representatives voted rules on Thursday to authorise and open up impeachment hearings against US President Donald Trump, meeting a demand by him and the Republicans.

The resolution, which also set up the framework for the impeachment, sailed through the House where the Democrats have a majority. The move was proposed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The votes, mostly along party lines, were 232 for the resolution and 196 against. Only two Democrats joined the Republican in voting against it.

Although the Republicans had demanded open hearings and their increased participation, they opposed the resolution because it did not meet all their demands.

As the House took up the resolution, Trump tweeted, "The Impeachment Hoax is hurting our Stock Market. The Do Nothing Democrats don't care!"

The House Intelligence Committee will hold the first set of hearings under its chair, Adam Schiff, and produce a report for the Judiciary Committee, which will have the final say in drawing up the charges against Trump in what is known as Articles of Impeachment.

After the full House votes to approve it with a simple majority, the Senate will hold a formal trial presided over by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on the charges.

Two-thirds of the 100 Senators will have to vote to convict the President and remove him from office. As of now it seems unlikely that there will be that many Senate votes for impeachment, making the process nothing more than a political catharsis.

Nominally, the proposed procedures give the Republicans some rights in the conduct of the proceedings to assuage their complaints about being sidelined.

The Republican Party leaders, David Nunes on the Intelligence Committee and Dough Collins on the Judiciary Committee, will have the right to call witnesses, but the chairs can object and call for a committee vote, where the Democrats hold the majority.

CNN quoted Republican Representative Greg Walden as complaining, "It is still not set up as a fair process" because "the Democrats call all the shots."

Jim McGovern, the chair of the Rules Committee which finalised the draft resolution that set out the procedures, dismissed the Republican concerns, saying, according to CNN, "Their sole mission is to circle the wagons around Donald Trump. They're not interested in the truth."

Trump's lawyers will be allowed to participate in the Judiciary Committee's proceedings by submitting evidence and cross-examining witnesses.

But if Trump prevents witnesses from appearing before it or refuses requests for documents, Trump's lawyers will not be allowed to continue examining witnesses.

Only the chair and the Republican leader -- and/or their lawyers -- on the panel will first question witnesses for 45 minutes each and other members can examine them for a limited time.

Pelosi had resisted having the full House vote on impeachment or have the proceedings in the open, but finally gave in.

The vote undercuts Trump's excuse to not allow witnesses or to provide documents to the inquiry because he said the House had not approved it.

It also shuts down complaints about the secrecy, which gave the Democrats an upper hand through selective leaks.

It was not clear when the open hearings will begin.

A key figure in the White House Drama, John Bolton, who was fired by Trump as the National Security Adviser and whose name has figured in some of the testimonies, has been asked to appear before the inquiry next week.

If the open hearings end up delaying the final impeachment vote till the end of this year or beyond, they could create problems for the Democratic Party's process of selecting its candidate to run against Trump.

The primaries and caucuses that determine the support for candidates at the state level leading up to the convention start in early February. If the impeachment trial in the Senate overlaps this period, it could be a distraction and also interfere with the campaigns of candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, who are Senators.

Meanwhile, another important issue, the continued funding of the government, looms next month while the House will be grappling with impeachment.

The funding ends on November 21 and if Congress does not pass the legislation authorising the spending or it Trump doesn't sign it, government operations will shut down, except for the most essential ones.

A 35-day shutdown occurred between December last year and January when Trump refused to approve the budget without allocation for his border wall and most federal workers were temporarily laid off and services were curtailed. As Pelosi stood firm, Trump compromised.

Currently, the government is being run on a temporary measure under what is known as a continuing resolution by Congress to provide interim funding.

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer warned that Trump may create another shutdown to divert attention from the impeachment.

"I am increasingly worried that President Trump may want to shut down the government again because of impeachment, an impeachment inquiry. He always wants to create diversions," he said.

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter @arulouis)

Source: IANS

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Mumbai, Sep 16 (IANS) The global benchmark oil price, the Brent crude, jumped nearly 12 per cent on Monday.

This is one the biggest-single day leap in recent times, which came after the drone attacks at the world's largest oil processing facility at Aramco in Saudi Arabia.

At 7.48 a.m., the Brent was trading higher by 11.09 per cent at $66.90 a barrel.

Owing to subued demand and trade tension, the Brent Crude had declined for the fourth consecutive session on Friday. The Brent crude oil prices had closed slightly higher than the $60 a barrel mark.

The drone attacks claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels set alight two major oil facilities run by the state-owned company Aramco in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, the Kingdom's Interior Ministry said.

The Saudi Press Agency, citing a statement by the Ministry, said that the drones caused the fire at the refinery in the city of Abqaiq in the Kingdom's oil-rich Eastern Province, as well as the blaze at the Khurais oil field, around 150 km from Riyadh.

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Ayodhya, June 15 (IANS) Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray will visit Ayodhya on Sunday along with his 18 party MPs. His wife Rashmi and son Aditya are also expected to join him.

Talking to reporters on Saturday, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said: "Uddhav Thackeray and our MPs are coming to Ayodhya to offer prayers at the makeshift Ram temple. For us, Ayodhya and Ram temple are not subjects of politics, but a matter of faith and religion. We have never sought votes in the name of the temple and will never do so."

Raut said Thackeray had promised to visit Ayodhya with his MPs after elections and he was simply fulfilling the promise. MPs will return to Mumbai after offering prayers at the temple.

The Yogi Adityanath government has accorded the state guest status to Thackeray and Sena MPs.

Last November, the Shiv Sena chief and his family had visited Ayodhya, where he coined the slogan, "Pehle mandir, phir sarkar" (First temple, then government).

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New Delhi, May 6 (IANS) Twitterati on Monday went berserk after the news of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg actively working on to launch WhatsApp Pay in India and how it can hamper Paytm's future plans spread like a wildfire.

IANS on Sunday reported, quoting industry analysts, that WhatsApp Pay is going to be the real game changer in the burgeoning Indian digital payments industry, likely to hit the $1-trillion mark by 2023.

"Paytm was most excited when demonitisation was announced and that digital will make India. Just 2 years down the line Paytm is facing extinction," tweeted Joseph Oommen.

"Well it was a WAR waiting to happen for sure..." tweeted entrepreneur Ajay Nandiwdekar.

WhatsApp currently has over 300 million users in India and once it starts peer-to-peer (P2P) UPI-based payments service, it would be in a real strong position.

"Winter's coming for Paytm," tweeted Rohit Kuttapan, a digital marketer.

"Your punchline may get changed from 'Paytm Karo' to "Paytm bhi kar lo" ! After #Whatsapp Payment. Lol," tweeted Anoop Mishra, one of the nation's leading social media experts.

Another Twitter user Tanmay said: "WhatsApp Pay RIP Paytm".

WhatsApp on May 3 told the Supreme Court that it would comply with the Reserve Bank of India's data localisation norms before launching the full payments service in the country.

The WhatsApp Pay service in India may become fully operational in the next four to five months, said media reports.

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Make-up artiste Mouna Lall, and Jason Arland, senior manager at Artistry, have listed the do's and don'ts of make-up:

• The biggest mistake is not using a moisturising cream. One must wash and apply a cream or moisturiser depending on the skin type at least 15 minutes before pruning the skin.

• Always use a primer which helps the foundation to have a smooth surface to settle on. This makes make-up last long.

• If you have dry skin, any kind of moisturiser can be used where as if you have an oily skin then only water based foundations should be used.

• It is important to know how to apply foundation. We make big mistakes like using both our hands and rubbing it away instead of tapping and placing it on the skin with two fingers or a brush.

• Confusing correctors and concealers is a major confusion people often have. Correctors are for correcting one's skin tone whereas concealers will conceal the corrector and foundation, giving an even skin tone.

• Use a fine mineralised powder just to set the make-up base to avoid a heavy cakey face as the natural make-up look is in fashion.

• Matching same colour eyeshadow, lipstick and nail polish with clothes is a big no as the look becomes one-dimensional and is not appealing to the eyes. If you wear a pink outfit with gold work, then the eyes can be brown gold or smokey with only lipstick matching the dress.

• Heavy punched in the face kind of smokey eyes is a big turnoff. Blend it well.

• Go for a blush that is closest to your skin tone. Fair and medium skinned people can try the rosy pink and peaches. Nude, red and brown coloured blush look best on people with dusky and deeper skin tones.

• Using same colour lip liner all over the lips and following with lipstick is important for the lipstick to have a long stay and not leave a line after a while.

• Waterproof mascara is amazing, but not always. The water-resistant formula can dry out your lashes causing them to break easily. Also, removing the waterproof mascara takes a whole of effort which can again damage your lashes. Keep it reserved for weddings and parties.

• Dump all the products that have crossed their expiry date. Old and expired products are not safe to use and can lead to rashes, allergies and irritation.

• Make-up brushes are important tools that give you the right application and finish. Keeping them clean prolongs their life and saves you a lot of trouble of breakouts and infection. Wash them regularly with warm water and detergent and then soak them in antiseptic liquid before drying out completely.

• Bronzer has become the next big thing in the make-up world. But while everybody wants to use bronzer for that sun-kissed look, wearing too much of bronzer and applying it all over the face can backfire. Use the smallest quantity of bronzer on the jaw line, edges of the forehead, temples and sides of the nose bridge for a warm glow that looks natural.

• Lipsticks are the easiest way to perk up the pout. A general thumb rule to follow is that, dark colours are likely to make your lips look even thinner while lighter ones will make the lips look fuller.

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Film: Agnyaathavaasi

Language: Telugu

Cast:  Pawan Kalyan, Keerthy Suresh, Anu Emmanuel, Aadhi Pinisetty, Boman Irani, Kushboo, Parag Tyagi, Rao Ramesh, Sampath Raj, Murali Sharma, Vennela Kishore, Ajay, Sameer Hasan, Aadukalam Naren

Director: Trivikram Srinivas

Rating: 2.75

Reviewed By: SOCIALNEWS.XYZ

Story: Abhijith Bhargav (Pawan Kalyan ) comes out of exile and joins his own company as Assistant Manager after his Dad and Brother are killed. Did Abhijith succeed in his mission of exposing his family killers forms the rest of the story?

Acting: Pawan Kalyan is in his element in action scenes but the comedy scenes missed his punch. Keerthy Suresh, Anu Emmanuel have roles nothing to talk about. They did their part. But their own dubbing felt very odd. Kushboo did an excellent job as a woman who gets caught in a power struggle. Her screen presence is very good. She was able to hold some scenes just with her expressions. Boman Irani got a good role and he did a good job. Aadhi Pinisetty as villain looked debonaire. Looks like Telugu industry has found a good anti-hero. Tanikella Bharani as hero's uncle fit the bill to tee.  Rao Ramesh, Murali Sharma roles (Varma & Sharma) comes as a comic relief but at times went overboard.  Sampath Raj is wasted.

Techincal: Director Trivikram Srinivas tried to deal a revenge drama using comedy and suspense. Trying to pull this off he failed. The comedy scenes and suspense scenes overlap and create more confusion. His mark is missing most part of the movie. He showed his genius in glimpses but not enough to hold the movie. The screenplay should have been better. Cinematography by V. Manikandan is excellent. Every frame in the movie looked beautiful. Editing by Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao could have been better. Some scenes felt like we missed something. Music by Anirudh Ravichander is OK. But the songs felt odd on the screen. The background music is good though. Production by Haarika & Hassine Creations is good.

Analysis: The screenplay is a big let down. Revenge drama with comedy and suspense would have worked if the comedy has worked. But it felt like beaten to death routine comedy and has nothing new to offer. The screenplay at times felt like watching Atharintiki Daaredi. The action episodes are good but they happen too fast to even enjoy.

Highlights:

Pawan Kalyan
Action Episodes
Huge Cast

Drawbacks:

Screenplay
Music
Story

Box office: The movie has a high pre-release business and needs to perform very well over this holiday week to recover some of it.

Verdict: Strictly for Power Star Pawan Kalyan Fans.

Bottom Line: Where is the Plan B?

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By Anand Singh

New Delhi, Dec 31 (IANS) It was a challenging year for Indian Railways as it had to deal with a spate of accidents amid efforts to improve speed, revenue, safety and efficiency.

The year saw a change of guard at the ministry -- the third of the Modi government and the 11th in the past eight years -- with Piyush Goyal replacing Suresh Prabhu in September after 20 people died due to the derailment of Puri-Haridwar Utkal Express.

The new railway minister spelt out his priorities in terms of passenger safety, non-fare options to increase revenue, fast-tracking investments and electrification of routes.

There was also a change at the top in the Railway Board and Ashwani Lohani took over as its Chairman in August.

Days after taking over, Lohani wrote a letter to the employees urging them to pitch in wholeheartedly to set right the "image perception" of the national transporter that it was facing at a critical juncture.

Lohani said Railways had suffered a "serious dent" in the recent past due to unfortunate incidents and mentioned the need to bring down its operating ratio by steps such as reducing expenditure and increasing freight loading.

Railways is the largest rail network in Asia and the world's second-largest under one management and carries 23 million passengers daily. It is also the world's largest employer under single management and has an estimated 130,000 employees.

The year also saw the rail budget being merged with the general budget, breaking a tradition that had been continuing since 1924.

The foundation stone was laid for the country's first bullet train network on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route being built in collaboration with Japan that will cover the distance in just over two hours and is expected to have spin-offs, including new technology and skills.

The Railways have evolved a road map to increase speed of trains on some stipulated sectors that connect the metro cities as well as some state capitals.

It has also set a target to eliminate all unmanned level crossings by next year.

The challenges that Railways face include modernising the rolling stock such as locomotives and coaches, and reducing load of its sections running at above-line capacity (40 percent of Indian Railways' 1,219 line sections are utilised beyond 100 percent).
Goyal has laid emphasis on mopping up internal resources and said that the national transporter was not looking at more funds in the 2018-19 budget as it is focused on monetising its own assets.

The Union Budget for 2017-18 pegged the Indian Railways' capital expenditure at Rs 1.31 lakh crore, the highest ever in its history. Of this, gross budgetary support from the Finance Ministry was to the tune of Rs 55,000 crore.

According to an analysis done by IndiaSpend, a data journalism initiative, India's death toll from train derailments in 2016-17 was the highest in a decade.

However, Railways' own data says that "consequential train accidents" decreased from 107 to 104 in 2016-17 compared to the previous fiscal. It says that the number came down from 85 to 49 between April 1, 2017, and November 30, 2017, in comparison to the corresponding period last year.

The government had declared in 2015 that it will invest Rs 8.5 lakh crore in Indian railways to change the face of the sector. Goyal said earlier this year that railways is looking to invest about Rs 9.7 lakh crore in the next five years and this would help create 10 lakh job opportunities.

He also said that the ministry was reducing the time period for electrification of rail lines to save around Rs 10,000 crore per annum on fuel.

During the year, the railways introduced the country's first semi-high speed fully AC train which has several modern facilities such as on-board LED TV, tea/coffee vending machine and bio-toilets.

The railways also started an SMS service about delayed trains with Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Tejas and Gatiman covered in the initial phase.

It also launced a new catering policy and initiated steps for 100 percent LED lighting at stations.

Under Project Swarn, 14 Rajdhani and 15 Shatabadi trains have been identified to significantly improve passenger experience.

If the efforts for a turnaround in the Railways yield results in the short term and there is boost to employment, it is likely to bring electoral dividends for the Narendra Modi government.

(Anand Singh can be contacted at anand.s@ians.in)

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Kolkata, Dec 31 (IANS) Keeping up a strong anti-BJP rhetoric, West Bengal's indefatigable 'Didi' gunned for Prime Minister Narendra Modi through the year, lacing her speeches and social media postings with sarcasm and choice words as her government clashed with the Centre on various issues.

From mythology to ancient Indian history, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee left nothing untouched in letting loose incessant verbal volleys at Modi, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continued to increase its vote-share in various by-polls and local body elections in West Bengal.

As the BJP tried to emerge as a viable alternative to the Trinamool, Banerjee in turn endeavoured to project herself as the most prominent opponent of the Hindutva brigade nationally.

The feisty leader networked with regional leaders opposed to the Sangh Parivar -- the ideological parent of the BJP as well as several right-wing outfits -- and formulated decisions and actions that could give her brownie points over the central dispensation and its propelling force.

She fired on all cylinders, targeting Modi's key policies like demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) while trying to exploit burning issues like sliding economic growth, rampant intolerance, the beef ban and cow vigilantism.

However, it was her colourful and strident attacks on Modi that grabbed the spotlight.

If she likened Modi to the greatest Sanskrit poet and dramatist Kalidasa, it was not because of the writer's literary prowess but only a reference to an oft-told story of him "lacking intelligence as a youngster -- cutting the branch he was sitting on".

"All institutions (of the nation) are under attack. This is a dangerous game. The PM is behaving like Kalidasa, trying to cut the branch he is sitting on," Banerjee remarked.

During another aggressive speech, Banerjee drew a parallel between Modi and demon king Ravana of the Ramayana epic.

"He claims that he has broad chest and shoulders. Even Ravana had broad shoulders. And he also had 10 heads," she said, alluding to Modi's drumbeating that he has a "56-inch chest".

On another occasion, she predicted that "Barda" (elder brother) will have to bow out of office after the 2019 parliamentary polls.

Addressing a public meeting in Bankura district, Banerjee raised the pitch further, dubbing the Modi government "deaf and dumb''. But a separate barb was reserved for the Prime Minister.

"He used to call himself a 'chaiwala' (tea seller) before. Now he has become a millionaire 'Paytm-wala' (one who endorses e-wallets like Paytm)."

Demonetisation, to her, was Modi's "shameless flop show" that she dismissed on Twitter as "visionless, missionless and directionless".

Not in a mood to let go of any democratic mode of protest, she even knocked on the door of then President Pranab Mukherjee, urging him to "save the country from the mess" and sought a "national government" minus Modi. Banerjee was ready to accept another BJP leader at its helm and went to the extent of naming L.K. Advani, Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley as being acceptable.

While backing GST, Banerjee took the Modi government to task for rolling out the new regime with "disastrous hurry" on July 1. She called the step "another epic blunder" of the Centre.

The CBI probes into the multi-billion-rupee Saradha Ponzi scam, Rose Valley Ponzi scam and Narada sting footage controversy -- in which a number of Trinamool leaders were implicated -- were also bones of contention between the Trinamool and the BJP.

While Banerjee accused the central agencies of acting out of "political vendetta" on the BJP's directions, the saffron party said it was an inquiry ordered by the Supreme Court.

Going ballistic, Banerjee threatened to slap defamation cases worth crores of rupees if the CBI did not proceed impartially.

The political battles between the Trinamool regime and the Centre even stretched to observance of red letter dates like Independence Day and Teachers Day.

When the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) sent a circular to the states recommending a structured format promoting Modi's pet "Swachh Bharat Mission" during Teachers' Day celebrations in schools, the Mamata government shot off a counter-circular to schools saying the date needed to be observed with due reverence and solemnity as in "earlier years".

Ahead of Independence Day, the MHRD had issued a circular specifying "additional activities". But the state government came up with a directive asking the schools to "stop all preparations" for celebrating the day in the MHRD format.

With the Congress weakening, Banerjee kept herself busy attempting to strengthen ties throughout 2017 with prominent political leaders in the anti-BJP domain, particularly those from the regional parties.

She has been following many of them on Twitter, or exchanging pleasantries through tweets with the likes of ex-Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, senior Jammu and Kashmir National Conference leaders Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah, BSP chief Mayawati and DMK leader M.K. Stalin. She even met Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, a BJP baiter despite being an ally, though her party's views on religion and secularism were diametrically opposed to those of the Sena.

Though Banerjee has stressed on "collective leadership" to challenge Modi, she gave enough hints at a media conclave last month that she is not averse to taking the lead in bringing together opposition parties on a single platform against the BJP in 2019.

(Sirshendu Panth can be contacted at s.panth@ians.in)

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By Saurabh Katkurwar

New Delhi, Dec 31 (IANS) Pavitra Singh of Punjab's Mansa is representative of farmers across the country who were infuriated as agriculture prices collapsed for the second consecutive year, but their sufferings remained unnoticed until the June police firing in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur district that killed five farmers.

The episode, which led to many subsequent protests across the country, provoked the aggrieved farmers to vent their anger over the agrarian distress, mostly caused by the November 8, 2016, demonetisation that crippled the rural economy.

Farmers were unhappy over the non-fulfillment of the 2014 campaign promise by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) that they would be able to make a 50 per cent profit over their input costs -- especially as the situation got aggravated by the huge fall in prices to the extent that many couldn't even recover their input costs.

"Leave alone the big promises, we did not even receive the MSP (minimum support price) for the grain we produced. We did not have funds for the next sowing after the demonetisation struck us. We are facing huge difficulties in repaying our loans," Pavitra Singh lamented while speaking to IANS.

He said farmers in his area were forced to sell their rice at Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,250 per quintal as there were no takers for the MSP of Rs 1,510 fixed by the government.

Agricultural economist Devinder Sharma said the government's farm polices, especially those related to imports and exports, went awry to a "large extent" and led to prices in the local markets dropping.

"There are two major reasons for farm distress -- demonetisation and the crashing of the international market. The government imported pulses, wheat and coconut when the local production was, in fact, high. The volume of imports was more than the total agriculture budget," he said.

Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh witnessed a number of protests this year over the slump in prices of pulses -- mainly arhar (red gram) -- after the government stopped their procurement.

Thus, while it had been smooth sailing on the agricultural front for the BJP government at the Centre for almost three years since it came to power in 2014, the Mandsaur firing could be seen as the turning point, with the negative cascading effects, including the consolidation of farm unions and opposition parties on the issue and some prominent allies quitting the ruling alliance.

The anger can also be gauged from the fact that the BJP suffered electoral losses in Gujarat's cotton-belt in the assembly elections earlier this month.

Lok Sabha member and Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana leader Raju Shetty left the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in July after the government did not entertain the farmers' demand of a countrywide loan waiver and remunerative prices for their produce.

"I had pleaded with the government to provide financial help and assure remunerative prices for farm produce. However, the government did not act. So I had no option but to leave them to ensure justice for the farmers," Shetty told IANS.

Another big jolt was when Nana Patole, BJP MP from Maharashtra, resigned from the Lok Sabha and left the party.

While farmers across the country were mourning the death of their brethren in Mandsaur, Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh had different priorities -- he chose to participate in an yoga event the very next day after the incident.

This only added to the government's image as anti-farmer, which was quite evident during farmers' agitations.

"We held protests in Delhi for over 100 days for our demands and many supported us during the difficult time. However, Radha Mohan Singh neither visited us nor invited us to discuss our issues," said P. Ayyakannu, leader of 100-odd Tamil Nadu farmers who attracted eyeballs with their strange and innovative protests.

Parts of Tamil Nadu and Southern Karnataka have been reeling under severe drought for some years owing to a shortfall in the monsoon.

Barring a few exceptions, Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav managed to bring almost all concerned organisations under one umbrella -- 184 in the recent one -- to hold nationwide protests and the government was seen struggling to cope up with them.

In the mega protest held last month, around 20,000 farmers across the country hit the national capital to press their demands.

Dharmalingam, a farmer from Karnataka's Kolar district, said the government was seen in advertisement blitzes promoting new schemes for farmers, but their benefits hardly reach those for whom they are meant.

"A number of schemes have been launched so far in order to supposedly double our income. However, none of them has had any palpable impact so far," Dharmalingam told IANS.

(Saurabh Katkurwar can be reached at saurabh.k@ians.in)

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New Delhi, Dec 31 (IANS) The Supreme Court stood out in 2017 for protecting and advancing the rights of citizens in more ways than one, but primarily by empowering them against any intrusion of their privacy by the State or the private sector as it elevated the right to privacy as a fundamental right.

The Supreme Court will be quoted not just for its verdict expanding the scope of the Right to Life by including within its ambit the sacrosanct Right to Privacy, but it will also be counted for its pronouncements that instant triple talaq was unconstitutional and sex with a minor wife in a child marriage amounted to rape.

The Year 2017 also saw the top court's collegium finally putting in the public domain its deliberations on the appointment, transfer and elevation of High Court and Supreme Court judges with an explanation as to why a particular name was recommended or not.

This was viewed by some as the collegium throwing down the gauntlet for the executive, which is insisting on a provision in the Memorandum of Procedure (on appointments) that it can block a recommendation on the ground of national security but without elaborating on this.

The apex court did make serious efforts in making the government act on curbing advertisements and information on sex determination techniques available on the Internet but did not succeed to the extent that was expected.

In the end, virtually nothing was achieved in the matter as, even after a decade, says senior counsel Sanjay Parikh, and despite several court directions, the offending advertisements continue to appear on the Internet in violation of PNDT Act, resulting in a skewed girlchild ratio in some northern states.

All this apart, there is hardly an area impacting the life of the common people that escaped the top court's scanner, be it clean air to breathe, making politics free of tainted politicians, baring the chilling insensitivity of the powers that be denying relief to the farmers faced with drought or not getting a just and reasonable minimum support price for their agriculture produce -- leading to suicides.

Describing the 2017 as an "eventful year" with top court "standing up to the challenge" in addressing the issues of "great promise", senior counsel C.A. Sundram said that Supreme Court has reaffirmed itself as the "final guardian" on any matter that affects the public at large.

"The court has also clearly established that with regards to any matter that affects the public at large they are the final guardians and have acted as a sentinel to protect the fundamental rights of the citizens," Sundram told IANS.

"The decision in right to privacy is a sterling example," said Sundram, a view also shared by activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan and senior counsel Colin Gonsalves, well-known for espousing social causes.

"I think the Supreme Court has done extraordinarily well on social issues -- but only up to a point," said Gonsalves.

The top court's pronouncements to cleanse the legislatures of tainted law makers that started nearly a decade-and-a-half ago and mandating the disclosure of the assets and criminal antecedents continued in 2017 when it proposed setting up of courts to exclusively try criminal cases against the law makers and politicians.

It approved the setting of 12 exclusive courts to fast-track the trial of 1,571 pending cases against lawmakers. "Let us not get bogged down... let them set up 12 courts... It is not an end of it. Starting something is difficult."

Recognised the world over for its role in protecting the environment, the Supreme Court acted decisively as it prohibited the registration of vehicles that do not meet BS-IV emission standards from April 1, 2017, banned the use of pet-coke and furnace oil in the National Capital Region and, above all, stopped the sale of fire crackers during Diwali celebrations -- a step which earned it both laurels -- for relatively less polluted post Diwali morning -- and brickbats, with some equating the ban on the sale of fire crackers as an assault on the Hindu religion.

The top court also came to the rescue of home buyers who have been deprived of their rightful dwellings years beyond the due date by the big real estate companies.

Besides achievements, the top court had its troubled spots too -- its tussle with the executive on one hand and with a section of bar on the other.

However, when the government sought to criticise the top court for its pro-active approach and stepping into its policy-making domain, Chief Justice Dipak Misra was more than candid saying that the "protections of the fundamental rights of every citizen was a sacrosanct duty of the judiciary conferred by the Constitution".

The apex court seemingly succeeded in taming a section of the the bar seeking an SIT probe into the allegations of graft vis-a-vis a medical college involving a retired judge of the Orissa High Court, but not without its image taking a blow as it observed that its image has been damaged as "unnecessary doubts about the integrity of the institution have been created".

(Parmod Kumar can be contacted at saneel2010@gmail.com)

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Bengaluru, Dec 30 (IANS) Adopting disruptive technology and riding on the Digital India bandwagon, the e-commerce sector has survived the slowdown in 2017 and benefited from the note ban, which spurred online transactions.

More than computer-based Internet penetration and broadband extension, the record growth of smartphones and the 4G network rollout made e-tailing popular even in secondary cities and towns across the country thanks to easy and quick access to information and data on products and services.

"In the growing e-commerce business, e-tailers like Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal have led the growth, with more customers shopping online than ever before in the digital space," a market analyst told IANS here.

Though e-tailing accounts for 2.5 per cent of the retail trade, its advantages are making more people buy groceries, vegetables, fruits, chicken, eggs, meat and fish online from BigBasket, Fresh to Home, Nature Fresh and Grofers sites in metros like Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, NCR and Pune.

"As commuting through heavy traffic and finding a place for parking becomes difficult, we are hard-pressed for time to shop offline. It's easy and cheaper to order and get what we need -- and at discounted prices than relying on hard bargaining," said homemaker P. Susheela in the city's southeast suburb.

Not to be left out, popular eateries like KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonald's, SubWay and a host of Indian food joints have extended their services online, with dedicated portals for orders, payments and delivery on time.

"Growing consumerism, disposable incomes, changing lifestyles, extended work hours and social gatherings have made ordering food from outside common as it saves time and is made easier by multiple e-payments," the analyst said.

Though demonetisation disrupted the economy and caused hardship to millions of people using cash, the controversial move accelerated digital transactions and spawned a plethora of e-payment gateways.

Digital payments firm Paytm unveiled its e-commerce arm Paytm Mall in February and wooed customers to use its gateway for buying even offline through its omni-channel from retail chains like Big Bazaar, Spar, Hyper City and other supermarkets.

The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) also helped to spawn scores of state-run and private digital payment channels across the country and benefited e-commerce players in other sectors like B-2-B, B-2-C and government services.

Online payments were made more acceptable through state-run BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) and Bharat QR code for scanning and paying.

"The increasing mobile and Internet usage, mobile-commerce sales, advanced shipping, multiple payment options and discounts have fuelled the growth of the e-commerce sector across the country," the study noted.

Online access to global brands and products across verticals have given an opportunity and choice for netizens to decide what and when to buy from home or office and commuting or travelling outside.

Increasing awareness on the benefits of online trading has also helped people opt for virtual shopping, selecting, ordering, transacting business in retail and other sectors like logistics, healthcare, education, procurement and a range of services like booking tickets for travelling or even watching films.

"The e-commerce retail market is estimated to be $12 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) terms. Sales rose 40 per cent due to smart deals and huge discounts offered to lure consumers into online shopping," said a marketing research official.

Electronics continues to be the favourite in e-tailing, accounting for 47 per cent of e-sales, followed by apparel with 31 per cent e-sales.

According to a report by global professional services firm KPMG, online spending, including domestic and cross-border shopping, is set to grow 31 per cent annually to $136 billion by 2018.

"Cross-border shopping by Indians was Rs 58,370 crore ($9.1 billion) in 2016 and is expected to grow 85 per cent annually in 2017. The US, Britain and China are preferred countries for cross-border shopping," said the report.

The Indian consumer Internet market is projected to grow 44 per cent annually to $65 billion in 2017 from $45 billion in 2016.

Online travel agents have 70 per cent market share in the internet consumer segment, while the remaining 30 per cent is contributed by e-tailing, fashion, furniture, grocery, hotel, food tech, cab aggregators, education technology and alternative lending among others.

(Fakir Balaji can be reached at fakir.b@ians.in)

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By Porisma P. Gogoi and Rohit Vaid

Mumbai, Dec 30 (IANS) Economic reforms, coupled with political stability and prospects of higher future growth led market participants to bet "big and long" on the Indian equity markets during 2017.

However, the year was not without its share of lows -- from dampening second quarter growth numbers to the chaos that followed the Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation and threat of a nuclear showdown in the Korean peninsula -- induced volatility in the indices.

According to market observers, despite a continuous outflow of foreign funds, the future potential of the Indian equity markets encouraged domestic traders to take a long-term view of their investments.

The upward traction led the key equity indices -- Sensex and Nifty50 -- to close higher by 28 per cent and 29 per cent respectively.

The barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE augmented by a massive 7,430 points or 27.90 per cent to close at 34,056.83 points from last year's close at 26,626.46 points.

The small-cap and mid-cap indices outperformed the Sensex on the back of strong liquidity. During 2017, the S&P BSE mid-cap index surged over 47 per cent and the small-cap index by over 58 per cent.

On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the broader Nifty50 surged by an equally impressive 2,344.90 points or 28.64 per cent to close at 10,530.70 points from its 2016 close at 8,185.80 points.

"The year 2017 has been a great year for Indian stock market as it grew by approximately 28 per cent driven by liquidity, following likely continuity in economic policies, government initiatives and reforms, improvement in corporate earnings (expected) and positive global cues," D.K. Aggarwal, Chairman and Managing Director, SMC Investments and Advisors told IANS.

Not just on a standalone level, the Sensex and Nifty50 were amongst the best in attaining healthy growth rates globally. They were the best performing benchmark indices among the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group of countries.

In terms of events, the after-effect of demonetisation (November 8, 2016) and the mid-year roll-out of the one-tax GST system had a profound impact on the markets.

"Demonetisation witnessed large-scale cash deposits in equities and mutual funds (MFs) emerged as preferred investment options," Anand James, Chief Market Strategist, Geojit Financial Services, told IANS.

"Retail investors gradually started moving away from low yield assets like fixed deposits and are flocking towards MFs with around Rs 5,000 crore worth of SIPs (systematic investment plan) every month," he added.

The other key event was implementation of the GST. It had resulted in short-term disruptions in businesses and subsequently impacted equity indices, said analysts.

"The immediate impact of GST implementation led to slowdown in revenues and earnings of various cash led sectors, however, the impact is expected to fade in Q3 FY18 earnings," Anita Gandhi, Whole Time Director at Arihant Capital Markets, told IANS.

Along with demonetisation and GST, other domestic cues like state elections and sectoral reforms kept the equity markets largely busy which had mitigated the impact of global volatility during the year.

"Global markets did not have a great influence on Indian markets in 2017 except for temporary swings in line with the mood elsewhere. Interest rate rise abroad has led to some slowing down of FIIs (foreign institutional investors) inflows," Deepak Jasani, Head, Retail Research, HDFC Securities, told IANS.

Provisional figures from the Securities and Exchange Board of India revealed that during the year, cash flows of FIIs were worth Rs 51,215 crore and of domestic institutional investors Rs 114,824 crore.

On the currency front, the Indian rupee performed well this year in comparison with its Asian peers -- appreciating by almost six per cent -- on the back of strong inflows into local equities.

The rupee appreciated by 5.99 per cent to close at 63.87 to a dollar on December 29 compared to its last year's close at 67.94 per dollar.

On the BSE, all the sub-indices closed the year in green. The S&P BSE realty index was the top sectoral gainer despite implementation of Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, which edged higher by 105.42 per cent. The S&P BSE healthcare index gained the least with 0.30 per cent.

The top five gainers on the BSE were Tata Steel (up 87.84 per cent), Maruti Suzuki (up 80.92 per cent), Bharti Airtel (up 73.92 per cent), Reliance Industries (up 71.17 per cent) and Hindustan Unilever (up 64.27 per cent).

The top five losers were Tata Motors (DVR) (down 20.54 per cent), Dr Reddy's Laboratories (down 20.49 per cent), Coal India (down 12.35 per cent), Tata Motors (down 11.23 per cent) and Sun Pharma (down 9.82 per cent).

Highlights:

• Sensex gained 28 per cent, scaled 52-week high of 34,137.97 points

• Nifty gained 29 per cent, scaled 52-week high of 10,552.40 points

• BSE mid-cap index gained by over 47 per cent, small-cap index over 58 per cent

• On November 1 -- Sensex, Nifty witnessed steepest rise

• On September 22 -- Sensex, Nifty witnessed sharpest fall

• Tata Steel was the best performing Sensex stock

• Tata Motors (DVR) was the worst performing Sensex stock

• Realty was the best performing sectoral index

• Healthcare was the worst performing sectoral index

• Indian rupee gained nearly 6 per cent

  (Porisma P. Gogoi can be contacted at porisma.g@ians.in and Rohit Vaid at rohit.v@ians.in)

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By Mohd Asim Khan

New Delhi, Dec 30 (IANS) A neutral Election Commission (EC) is to a democracy what a violin is to a symphony orchestra or a vertebra is to the backbone. The EC, in the words of a former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), is like a neutral umpire in a cricket match -- he officiates from beginning to end without participating in the game.

But what if the players and the spectators begin to doubt the impartiality of the umpire? Well, besides taking all the fun out of the match, it will also deprive spectators of the value for the money they paid for the ticket.

The year 2017 will be remembered as a year when the EC's integrity was questioned by not one or two but by almost every political party out of the ruling coalition. And, of course, by the media, the watchdog in a democracy.

It all began with the "unexpected" and "shocking" results of the assembly elections in five states held in February -- Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the crucial Uttar Pradesh like never before -- winning 312 of the total 403 seats -- besides Uttarakhand.

Uttar Pradesh sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha and it is said that the key to the Centre lies in the state. The regional satraps -- the ousted Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) -- that were relegated to the margins with just 47 and 19 seats respectively, smelt a rat. They blamed the manipulated electronic voting machines (EVMs) for their devastating defeat.

In fact, it was BSP supremo Mayawati who first flagged the issue in no uncertain terms at a press conference soon after the results were out. Outgoing Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav reluctantly joined the bandwagon and then others followed suit.

In Punjab, where the Congress led by Amarinder Singh formed a majority government, it was Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who led the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that raised a storm. The AAP, it was reported, had made all preparations for the victory procession in the state. The AAP leaders were quick to blame the EVMs.

Kejriwal, on his part, had already questioned the integrity of one of the Election Commissioners -- O.P. Rawat -- for the disqualification case of 21 of his MLAs for holding offices of profit by being parliamentary secretaries. (Recall that famous "sab mile hue hain ji" -- all are involved line?) Rawat rescused himself from the case.

Now, facing an onslaught from all directions, the then Chief Election Commissioner, Nasim Zaidi, was quick and persistent with the denial of any wrongdoing in the election process. The EVMs could not be hacked or manipulated, he averred time and again.

In May, Delhi MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj, an engineer-turned-politician, demonstrated at a special session of the Delhi Assembly how an EVM could be hacked. The 'tampered' machine showed that eight votes polled in favour of the AAP went to the BJP.

However, the EC rejected the AAP's claim, saying the machine hacked in the Delhi Assembly was a "look-alike" gadget and not the actual machine used by it.

"It is common sense that gadgets other than ECI EVMs can be programmed to perform in a pre-determined way, but it simply cannot be implied that ECI EVMs will behave in the same manner because they are technically secured and function under an elaborate administrative and security protocol," the EC said in a statement.

On June 3, the EC organised a "hackathon" and invited all the political parties to come and hack the machines within certain parameters.

Only the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the CPI-M showed interest in participating in the challenge. The Commission brought 14 EVMs from 12 assembly constituencies of Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh for the challenge. Even these two parties did not attempt hacking and only watched a demonstration of its safety features.

But the spectre of EVM hacking refused to die down with all sorts of conspiracy theories floating in the public domain.

Later, in an exclusive interview with IANS, then CEC Nasim Zaidi confided that in the face of attacks on the EC, he cared least for his personal image and was worried about the image of the institution of Election Commission.

The EC under Zaidi pursued the central government to release funds to purchase the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines that can be fitted with every EVM.

"It is felt that the process of procurement of VVPATs cannot be delayed any longer given prevailing environment," the Commission said in its letter on March 22.

After a dozen letters, and in the heat of the raging controversy, the government finally yielded and released around Rs 31,000 crore to buy over 1,600,000 VVPAT machines.

With the EC's assurance that all future elections to state assemblies and the Lok Sabha will be held with VVPATs, the controversy over rigging of elections through EVMs was finally laid to rest.

A VVPAT machine generates a paper slip showing the candidate's name and party symbol as soon as the voter presses the button on the EVM. The slip is visible for seven seconds before dropping into a box. These slips can be counted in case of a dispute.

However, the EC again had a bad press a few moths later for one of its "unprecedented" decisions. While announcing dates for the Himachal Pradesh assembly polls, it withheld dates for Gujarat. Thus the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) did not come into force in the state as it did in Himachal.

Normally, the schedule of polls in states whose assembly terms end within a month's span are announced together. But this time around, the poll panel's digression from the tradition and the set practice raised several eyebrows.

The EC's neutrality once again came under scanner as Chief Election Commissioner A.K. Joti could not give a credible explanation for his actions and mostly resorted to technicalities in response to a volley of questions from a surprised media.

Joti cited flood relief as one reason for delaying the Gujarat polls. But in 2014, when Jammu and Kashmir had not recovered even partly from the devastating floods, the same poll panel did not feel that relief work would be affected by elections.

The opposition's allegations and media's scepticism over the EC's neutrality gained currency as Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced sops for Gujarat worth hundreds of crores of rupees, including a Ro-Ro ferry service in the 15-odd day window the state got before the model code came into force.

The fact that Joti had worked in Gujarat for a long time in several key positions, including as the Chief Secretary under then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, did not help his case either.

Nevertheless, the BJP has won in Gujarat and the year of controversies is behind us. Wait till 2018 -- when eight states go to the polls -- and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections for more fireworks on this front.

(Mohd Asim Khan can be reached at mohd.a@ians.in)

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New Delhi, Dec 30 (IANS) While the strategic petroleum sector, including oil and gas, continues to remain outside the new GST indirect tax regime that replaced a 70-year-old system, the industry did manage in 2017 to switch over to a new exploration regime that gives producers marketing and pricing freedom.

The petroleum industry has been pushing for its inclusion in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) structure so as not to be deprived of the benefits of input credit -- a novel feature whereby goods and service providers get the benefit of input tax credit for the goods used, effectively making the real incidence of taxation lower than the headline rate.

The Centre is keen to bring under GST products like petrol and diesel that generate considerable reveue for the states, which they are loathe to surrender. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley provided this remarkable insight about the functioning of the Council that he heads.
"Everything has been achieved by consensus in the best spirit of cooperative federalism. There has been no politics, even from states which are controlled by opposition parties," he told a gathering of industry leaders here.

During the course of the year on the other hand, India conducted its first auctions and, consequently, awarded the first licences for hydrocarbons exploration under a new revenue-sharing model, as opposed to the previous profit-sharing one, and the successful bidders had complete marketing and pricing freedom.

In the early part of the year, the government approved 31 contracts for exploration of small oil and gas contract areas under the Discovered Small Fields (DSF) Bid Round. As many as 46 contract areas designated for 67 discovered small fields across nine sedimentary basins were on offer, bids for which came in from majors like Cairn India and Hindustan Oil Exploration Co, along with from five smaller foreign firms.

The auction was held under the new Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) approved last year to replace the controversial production-sharing contracts (PSC) that had governed the bidding in nine earlier New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) rounds.

The PSC regime, which allows operators to recover all investments made from sale of oil and gas before profits are shared with the government, was criticised by India's official auditor, who said it encouraged companies to keep inflating costs to postpone the sharing of profits.

The Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) launched by the government in July allowed oil and gas companies to select exploration blocks on their own, without waiting for a formal bid round from the government. It replaced the old system of the government carving out areas for bidding them out.

As a necessary complement to the OALP, the country's first national data repository (NDR) was also launched which allows explorers to access seismic data on the sedimentary basin before making their bids.

As many as 51 proposals seeking around 60,000 sq km of area for oil and gas exploration have been bid for in the maiden auction under the OALP, bidding for which is slated to be held twice a year.

"In the new model, the government will not micromanage, micro monitor with producers. Government will only share revenue," Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said while announcing the OALP. The bidder offering the maximum share of oil or gas produced from the selected area would be awarded the block.

India's domestic crude oil production of 36.95 million tonnes in 2015-16 barely met 20 per cent of its oil needs. Natural gas output at 32.249 billion cubic metres meets less than half of its needs.

The reforms in the sector in a bid to raise output comes in the current difficult context for the global oil industry caused by crude prices falling sharply from the highs of over $120 a barrel that prevailed two years ago.

Which leads to the other story of the year, whereby oil regained the $60 a barrel level, from lows of around $25, after the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), along with non-OPEC producers, put in place output cuts from January 1 to counter the fall in prices caused by a supply glut.

With prices hardening, India's oil imports during October shot up by 27.89 per cent to $9.29 billion, from $7.26 billion in the same month last year. It forced the government to cut excise duty on transport fuels by Rs 2 a litre after the petrol price had progressively risen to over Rs 79 per litre in Mumbai, recording the highest since the coming of the Modi government.

In the major corporate move of the year in the sector in June, Reliance Industries and British energy major BP annnouced the creation of a joint venture energy vertical to work across the entire value chain, involving investment of $6 billion, or Rs 40,000 crore. This would also develop their existing deep-water gas fields in India's eastern offshore to bring to fresh production of one billion cubic feet per day by 2022.

(Biswajit Choudhury can be reached at biswajit.c@ians.in)

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By Prashant Sood and Sidhartha Dutta

New Delhi, Dec 30 (IANS) Opposition parties face a daunting task to check the BJP's rise and expansion under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the coming year presents them opportunities to do so in eight states that go to the polls. It will also test them for their ability to build up the momentum against the BJP in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha poll.

Much will depend on the Congress Party's performance in these state polls, as also the initiatives that its new President, Rahul Gandhi, takes in reaching out to other opposition parties.

Elections will be held in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura and Mizoram in 2018 -- and in the four big states it is almost a direct contest between the BJP and the Congress, while in Tripura the battle will be between the CPI-M and the BJP.

With the Congress losing several elections over the past over three years, there is already talk of "collective leadership" in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and suggestions against making it a presidential-style electoral contest against Modi.

The year saw 18 opposition parties coming together to put up common candidates for the presidential and vice presidential elections. But these parties, which included the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) did not come together for the Gujarat assembly polls which the Congress narrowly lost.

The 18 parties came together after the Uttar Pradesh elections that the BSP and the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance fought separately and lost badly to the BJP.

NCP leader Tariq Anwar said the Congress lost about 12 seats in Gujarat because it did not ally with his party and the BSP. "They should not repeat the same mistake in the states going to the polls next year. If the Congress does well in these states, it will be a big boost ahead of the 2019 elections," he said.

Anwar said next year's state elections will give a clear picture about what will happen in 2019. "The elections will be a big challenge for the Congress and the opposition parties," he told IANS.

Opposition parties, specially in states with multi-polar contests, have competing interests and any proposal to put up common candidates against the BJP in 2019 elections will need a lot of accommodation and hard work.

The Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party are seen as adversaries in Uttar Pradesh and the Left, the Congress and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. The Congress is an adversary of the Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana, of the Telanaga Rashtra Samiti in Telangana and of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha.

It is apparently in view of these contradictions and the lacklustre performance of the Congress since its debacle in 2014 that Trinamool Congress leader Derek O'Brien called for a "collective leadership" to bring all opposition parties together against the BJP in each state.

He has said that that the opposition should play to its strengths and make the Lok Sabha elections a sum of state elections.

Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agrawal, MP, said "it was compulsion for the opposition parties to come together before the Lok Sabha elections" and parties such as BJD and Aam Aadmi Party should be part of the larger grouping.

"We will try that all opposition parties come together before the Lok Sabha elections. When Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister, a similar situation was before the country. All parties came together and she lost the election. History has to repeat itself," Agrawal told IANS.

T.K.S. Elangovan, a leader of Tamil Nadu's DMK, said Rahul Gandhi's campaign during the Gujarat polls had boosted Congress morale and stressed that in the upcoming elections, preparations should start much earlier.

"All secular parties should come together to fight the communal forces. They are trying to force Hindutva upon us. They are also spreading hatred," he said.

Elangovan also said that the Modi government has not delivered on its promises such as employment and improving the lives of the people. "We need to expose their propaganda," he said.

The CPI-M's Mohammed Salim said the secular parties "should discover an alternative narrative and strategy against the communal forces and they should be defeated".

CPI leader D. Raja said social forces have also to be mobilised, besides political parties, in the fight against the BJP and the Sangh Parivar, the umbrella organisation of the BJP and its right wing affiliates.

"A new economic and social narrative has to be devised to counter these forces," he said.

On the flip side, Janata Dal-United leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's return to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance earlier this year came as a blow to the opposition parties as he was seen as a leader who could emerge as a challenger to Modi.

RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's conviction in a case relating to the multi-crore rupee fodder scam has also come as a blow to the efforts towards opposition unity.

But a comforting factor for the Congress and some other opposition parties has been the acquittal of all the accused in the 2G spectrum case, on which the BJP had launched a sustained campaign against Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.

There would be many more chapters to this tale and it would be interesting to see the outcome towards the end of 2018.

(Prashant Sood can be contacted at prashant.s@ians.in and Sidhartha Dutta at sidthartha.d@ians.in)

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New Delhi, Dec 30 (IANS) Indian badminton in 2017 continued to move northwards, dishing out one stunning performance after another, especially with the men's shuttlers earning respect on the global stage.

While P.V. Sindhu extended her status as India's leading shuttler, the likes of Kidambi Srikanth, H.S. Prannoy and B. Sai Praneeth left their mark on the circuit, even as Saina Nehwal, now a veteran, battled her way to a World Championship bronze.

Saina, 27, struggled with her consistency and fitness but the 2012 London Olympic bronze medallist fought against time and went on to clinch the BWF World Championship bronze medal along with the Malaysia Masters, proving her doubters wrong and ending debates on her future.

Recuperating from her career-threatening knee ligament surgery after the 2016 Rio Games, Saina showed signs of improvement at the Premier Badminton League (PBL), which the Sindhu-led Chennai Smashers won in January.

Though the Indian pair failed to shine at the All England Superseries Champonships, the success for Indian badminton began at the home Superseries in April.

After losing the summit clash to Spanish star Carolina Marin in the Rio Olympics in August, the duo was again pitted against each other in the middle and this time it was the Indian player who proved superior.

After that, many experts claimed that these performances by the Indians might revolutionalise the game.

This was followed by Srikanth and Sai Praneeth setting up the first-ever all-Indian final in the Singapore Open Superseries, gaining more eyeballs for the sport. Sai Praneeth clinched the title and the standard and popularity of the sport increased manifold.

He then went on to clinch the Thailand Open Superseries, which was the crowning glory for men's badminton in India.

The Indian juggernaut on the global stage continued, with player after player stealing the limelight.

Just after Sai Praneeth won the Thailand Open Superseries title, Srikanth began his amazing run in the Superseries circuit. In June, the Guntur shuttler consecutively pocketed the Indonesia Open and the Australian Open and then lifted the Denmark and French titles in October.

With this, he also became the first Indian shuttler to win four Superseries titles in a calendar year.

Apart from Srikanth and Sai Praneeth, Prannoy also turned heads by breaking into the top 10 of the BWF rankings. He also lived up to his giant killer tag as he overpowered Lee Chong Wei, Chen Long and Lin Dan, badminton's version of the Big 3 of tennis.

The spotlight then again turned on Sindhu, who played a marathon match of one hour and 50 minutes against Japan's Nozomi Okuhara in the World Championships final, albeit going down narrowly. Even so, the high standard and the excellence of her game won the hearts of the badminton community. Both Sindhu and Saina ensured that India bagged two medals for the first time at the badminton worlds.

Cut to the last tournament of the year -- the Dubai Superseries Finals -- which saw Sindhu suffering another heartbreaking loss in the final, this time against another Japanese, Akane Yamaguchi.

But this is just the beginning of a glorious era of Indian badminton with all the singles players in their early 20s and most likely to improve and further flourish in the future.

(Gaurav Sharma can be contacted at gaurav.sharma@ians.in)

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By Mohit Dubey

Lucknow, Dec 30 (IANS) Uttar Pradesh was a parched land for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for 14 long years. Ever since the then Chief Minister Rajnath Singh lost the plot in the 2003 state assembly elections, the saffron party found itself on the sidelines of the country's politically most crucial state.

In election after election, the BJP was battered by regional satraps like Samajwadi party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati. In 2017, its political "vanvaas" (exile) ended and the party romped home with its highest seat tally ever -- 312 in a house of 403.

Building on the stunning victory of the 2014 Lok Sabha election, where the party won 73 of the 80 seats on offer, the BJP's well-oiled organisation and a frenzied campaign by Prime Minister Narenda Modi, party President Amit Shah and many regional leaders ensured the end of the exile and a return home in style.

The party promised a dejected population the moon and swayed them in its favour. People, fed up with the BSP and the SP misrule, had little option. The development Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's brought was for all to see but apparently the electorate was miffed with the SP's internal feud and the decision to join hands with Rahul Gandhi's Congress.

The results were catastrophic for the SP and the Congress, the former slipping to its lowest-ever tally of 47 and the latter doing no better than its last showing.

The BJP's "Dalit nahin Daulat ki beti" (Not a Dalit but the daughter of wealth) credo gained currency during the campaign and the BSP, which was largely being viewed by the media and political observers as a serious contender for the throne, was reduced to an abysmal 19 seats. The corruption charges stuck to Mayawati, already rattled by many desertions in the party.

Uttar Pradesh has always been the pivot of all politics that the saffron fold ever practised or preached. From a party of two members in the Lok Sabha to a centerstage challenger to the grand old Congress, the state has played an important role. It was here where the BJP's biggest political asset and electoral ace -- Ram Janmabhoomi -- existed. But after reaping the harvest of the "Jai Shri Ram" wave in the late 1990, the BJP found itself mired in inner-party bickering in the early 2000s.

Its tallest leader in the state, a backward Lodh, Kalyan Singh, had rebelled against the party high command, then comprising Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani, and had to be ultimately thrown out. His replacement, Ram Prakash Gupta, could neither hold the party together nor the government. His forgetfulness became the butt of many jokes in political and bureaucratic circles. Kalyan Singh would often ridicule him on how the "beginning of BJP's end" was for all to see.

And, as Kalyan Singh plotted his next moves -- not to win seats but to dent the BJP -- from his Mall Avenue bungalow, which also housed his close associate Kusum Rai, who was a cause of consternation when he was the Chief Minister, the BJP high command saw the damage that the tall backward leader was causing to its foundations in the Hindi heartland. Gupta was soon replaced by Rajnath Singh, the shrewd Thakur leader from eastern Uttar Pradesh -- but apparently that was too little too late.

Under Rajnath Singh, who was often accused by colleagues and opponents of promoting only Thakurs, the BJP's citadel cracked and the party lost power, coming down to two digits in the state assembly. Mandarins in the party stitched up an alliance with the mercurial Mayawati despite stiff opposition from the Brahmins and the Thakur lobby, who were still smarting under her past slogans like "Tilak Tarazoo aur Talwaar, inko maro joote chaar".

After a brief, 56-day spell of President's rule, BJP-BSP thrashed out differences and Mayawati became the Chief Minister for the third time round. But the problems kept mounting and Mayawati resigned in August 2003, parting ways amid acrimony, to end one of the strangest alliances in Indian politics.

In August the same year, Mulayam Singh Yadav was sworn in as the Chief Minister with the support of BSP dissidents and ran the government until 2007. It is widely speculated that a group of BJP leaders convinced Vajpayee that Mulayam would help in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. This never happened but the SP made it to the Lok Sabha with its strongest contingent ever of 39.

Lawlessness and mis-governance led to Mulayam Singh's loss at the hustings in 2007 and Mayawati returned with an absolute majority -- and the BJP still remained on the fringes. In 2012, Mulayam Singh's son Akhilesh Yadav led an impressive campaign and got a majority (for the first time) for his party.

The BJP, though looking upbeat yet again, did not move up in the electoral stocks. Its golden run started in 2014 when it peaked with 73 seats in the general election and, to its credit, it managed not only to maintain the lead in 2017 but also bettered it.

In March, however, when it picked firebrand monk-turned-politician Yogi Adityanath for the Chief Minister's post, it left many amused -- and many alarmed. Nine months down the line, though there have been no communal conflicts, Adityanath continues with his Hindutva agenda and the BJP continues to win elections -- something most guess were things mandated from the head of the Gorakshnath Mutt.

(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)

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By Radhika Bhirani and Sandeep Sharma

Mumbai, Dec 30 (IANS) The highest earning film in India this year -- "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion" -- was neither an original Hindi movie nor featured an established star. That says a lot about the changing dynamics of Bollywood which, in 2017, saw a mixed bag of projects that drew audiences mainly with solid content, notwithstanding star power.

Salman Khan's "Tubelight", Shah Rukh Khan's "Jab Harry Met Sejal" and Ranbir Kapoor-starrer "Jagga Jasoos" are cases in point. They failed to elicit the expected response despite the buzz -- falling flat in such a way that Salman and Shah Rukh reportedly compensated the distributors for the losses they incurred due to their movies.

There is no centralised agency to record Bollywood's box office numbers. But as per trade experts, while no Bollywood film has so far managed to cross the Rs 400 crore mark at the domestic box office, S.S. Rajamouli's magnum opus "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion" -- featuring Prabhas, Rana Daggubati and Anushka Shetty -- did the unexpected by minting Rs 510.99 crore.

Siddharth Roy Kapur, President of the Film and Television Producers Guild of India, says "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion" -- the sequel to hugely successful fantasy drama "Baahubali: The Beginning" -- was a game changer as "a dubbed Telugu language film became the biggest Hindi language blockbuster of all time".

"It really says a lot to everyone who works within Hindi cinema. It says that we can't make any excuses. 'Baahubali', in conventional terms, had everything going against it. The Hindi audience has traditionally not looked at southern stars as appealing and those who featured in 'Baahubali' had no name recognition in the Hindi market.

"Dubbed movies were always considered to be weaker at the box office because of the fact that they were not in the original language. But 'Baahubali' has come and dispelled all those myths," Kapur told IANS.

Largely, it boils down to the fact that "if you give people a cinematic experience and have the confidence and the gusto and the flair to be able to tell that story uninhibitedly in the way you want to tell it, then the audience will come and watch the film," Kapur added.

As far as Bollywood originals are concerned, nine films marched past the Rs 100 crore benchmark in a year when the central government introduced Goods and Services Tax (GST) -- for tickets below Rs 100, it stands at 18 per cent and for tickets above Rs 100 at 28 per cent.

"Tiger Zinda Hai" turned out to be the highest grosser among Bollywood originals with a collection of Rs 206.4 crore till December 28.

Even the team of Reliance Entertainment-backed "Golmaal Again" laughed its way to the bank with a collection of Rs 205.67 crore.

There were others -- "Raees" (Rs 137.71 crore), "Kaabil" (Rs 103.84 crore), "Jolly LLB 2" (Rs 117 crore), "Badrinath Ki Dulhania" (Rs 116.68 crore), "Toilet: Ek Prem Katha" (Rs 134.22 crore), "Judwaa 2" (Rs 138.61 crore) and the latest, "Tiger Zinda Hai" (Rs 173 crore and counting).

"Tubelight", though not counted among Salman's hits, also went past the Rs 100 crore mark by minting Rs 119.26 crore.

According to Kamal Gianchandani, CEO, PVR Pictures, "Tubelight" was one example of how "stars on their own are not enough to pull in audiences".

"See Salman in 'Tiger Zinda Hai'. It's an established franchise but also a film with a strong nationalistic flavour and content that's appealing to a broad section of people. It has been a respite at the box office, but see the same Salman in a long and slow film like 'Tubelight', which was not suitable to the actor's image," Gianchandani told IANS.

"Well-drafted, well-written, well-packaged and well-presented content with a star, creates magic at the box office," added Gianchandani, who appreciated how smaller films like "Newton" and "Tumhari Sulu" did well.

"Each time there was a good film, the audiences came out in big numbers and supported it."

"Naam Shabana", "Hindi Medium", "Sachin - A Billion Dreams", "Mom", "Lipstick Under My Burkha", "Bareilly Ki Barfi", "Shubh Mangal Saavdhan", "Secret Superstar" and "Fukrey Returns" were some such titles which found resonance with the audience. As always, content was king.

The movies which fell flat against expectations include "Ok Jaanu", "Rangoon", "Begum Jaan", "Noor", "Sarkar 3", "Meri Pyaari Bindu", "Raabta", "A Gentleman", "Simran", "Bhoomi", "Haseena Parkar", "Chef" and "Firangi".

Besides that, the big-ticket "Padmavati", which was due to release on December 1, got caught in a spiralling controversy which has kept it away from hitting the screens.

Girish Johar, film business and trade analyst, told IANS: "Had 'Baahubali' not been there, Bollywood would have performed poorly. Hindi films per se haven't done great. 'Padmavati' was supposed to release in December, but it did not, so all eyes were on 'Tiger Zinda Hai'.

"I think we are still falling short of 10-12 per cent on the annual box office returns, and that's a depressing way to end the year."

The solution, as Kapur pointed out, lies in "better stories and better scripts".

(Radhika Bhirani & Sandeep Sharma can be contacted at radhika.b@ians.in and sandeep.s@ians.in)

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By Sujit Chakraborty

Agartala, Dec 29 (IANS) In India's 65-year electoral history, the country's dominant Left party, the CPI-M, has never been in direct confrontation with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Political developments in Tripura this year have set the stage for their first face-to-face battle in the February 2018 assembly polls as the saffron outfit has emerged as the key opposition party in this Communist-ruled state.

In what was seen as a shot in the arm less than two months ahead of the assembly elections, the BJP officially entered the Tripura assembly after the Speaker on December 8 recognised six former Trinamool Congress legislators who had defected to the party as BJP members.

They became the BJP members in the assembly since the northeastern state got a legislative body, a 32-member Territorial Council, 60 years ago in 1957.

Expressing confidence about defeating the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) -- headed by four-term Chief Minister Manim Sarkar, who has been in power in the state since 1998 -- state BJP President Biplab Kumar Deb said that Tripura would be the country's 20th state to be ruled by the BJP and its allies.

"Today, the BJP, along with its partners, is in control of 19 of the 29 states in India. Some 65 to 68 per cent of India's population resides in these 19 states," Deb told IANS.

"Due to misgovernance, corruption, crime against women and a record political murders, the BJP's growth in Tripura in 2017 was incomparable. Based on this growth and with the 'Prati Ghare Rojgar, Prati Ghare Modi Sarkar' (employment in each household, Modi government in every household) slogan, the BJP will form the government in the state after February's elections," Deb maintained.

The 47-year-old BJP leader said his party would help the people to live without fear, express themselves through freedom of speech, remove poverty and ensure zero tolerance of crime against women.

According to BJP leaders, over 25,000 supporters of other parties, including the CPI-M, joined the BJP in 2017 while over 30 party leaders, including central ministers and MPs, took part in the campaign in Tripura as the saffron party in its National Executive had set a target to capture the state.

Political analyst and writer Sekhar Datta said that in the outgoing year it had become explicitly clear that the Congress had become insignificant and that the BJP would take its place next February.

"Since 1952, the Congress has played a considerable role. But, for the first time, it would fight for the third or at best second position in the polls," Datta told IANS.

The Congress strength has been reduced to three in the 60-member assembly from the original 10 as six of its members quit, joined the Trinamool Congress and then the BJP. Another Congress MLA joined the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

On their part, the ruling party's leaders are confident that a Left Front government would be formed next February as a record 15,335 voters of other parties joined the CPI-M in 2017.

Referring to French Emperor Napoleon's final defeat by a combined force of the British and the Prussians in 1815, CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said: "The BJP would be stopped in Tripura in its continuing (string of) election victories and this would be its Waterloo."

"The BJP formed governments in Manipur and Goa (earlier this year) by using money power and illegal means. They would use all methods to win in Tripura as they have declared that Left-ruled states, including Kerala, are their main targets," Yechury told IANS.

However, the Left Front government found itself in an awkward position after the Supreme Court on March 29 upheld a Tripura High Court verdict terminating the jobs of 10,323 government school teachers, citing irregularities.

But, in a fresh order on December 14, the apex court extended the termination deadline to June 30 next year instead of December 31, 2017.

Another jolt during the year was when the tribal Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) blocked the vital National Highway-8, the state's lifeline, and the lone railway line for more than 10 days in July to demand a separate homeland, causing an acute shortage of essential items and much hardship to the people.

The IPFT has been agitating since 2009 for upgrading the existing Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) into a separate tribal state.

Almost all major political parties, including the Left Front, Congress, the BJP and other tribal parties have rejected the demand, saying it is not practical to divide the small state.

As in the previous few years, Tripura, once ravaged by four-and-a-half decades of terrorism, remained free of any militancy-related incidents in 2017, defending its hard-earned peace.

(Sujit Chakraborty can be contacted at sujit.c@ians.in )

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New Delhi, Dec 28 (IANS) One year passes in the blink of an eye in terms of the age of our universe, but 2017 has made significant contributions towards unravelling the deep mysteries hidden in its vast expanse, giving the search for alien life a big boost.

From the first observations of a merger between two faraway neutron stars to stunning discoveries of a number of exoplanets in the habitable zone of a nearby star and the continued march of China as a serious space player, this year has had plenty of memorable developments to excite scientists and the public at large.

Marked as the "breakthrough of the year" by the journal Science, the merger of the two neutron stars 130 million light years away generated tiny ripples in the fabric of space-time called gravitational waves.

The first detection of gravitational waves two years ago has already brought scientists the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics, but sensing the space-time ripples after the merger of the neutron stars marked the first-ever detection of gravitational waves as well as light produced and emitted during the same cosmic event, a phenomenon that scientists like to describe as hearing and seeing the violent universe.

While the observation of this collision provides scientists clues on how heavy elements like gold and platinum are produced in our cosmos, and advances understanding of the universe in myriad other ways, the discovery of several Earth-sized planets orbiting stars outside our solar system has whetted the thirst for finding signs of life in worlds other than our home planet.

In February, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope revealed the first known system of seven Earth-sized planets around a single star -- the TRAPPIST-1 star -- an ultra-cool dwarf located at about 40 light-years from Earth.

The researchers determined that three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.

The discovery set a new record for maximum number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system.

In yet another first for the year, scientists spotted an "interstellar object" entering our solar system.

The discovery was made on October 19 by the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS 1 telescope during the course of its nightly search for near-Earth objects for NASA.

The discovery, termed "historic" by the US space agency, revealed the interstellar interloper to be a rocky, cigar-shaped object with a ratio of length to width unlike any asteroid or comet observed in our solar system.

The team from the Pan-STARRS observatory has chosen the name "Oumuamua" for their discovery. Of Hawaiian origin, the name means a messenger from afar arriving first.

In 2017, NASA made progress in the preparations to send astronauts to Mars and it became clear that the agency would have to make plans for returning astronauts to the Moon in preparation for human missions to the Red Planet and other destinations of our solar system.

The year also marks the end of Cassini's 13-year tour of Saturn as the spacecraft made a fateful plunge into the atmosphere of the ringed planet on September 15. The mission is often credited for transforming our understanding of ocean worlds, where life may potentially exist beyond Earth.

In April, NASA said that its Cassini spacecraft discovered hydrogen in the plume of gas and icy particles spraying from Saturn's moon Enceladus. The discovery means the small, icy moon -- which has a global ocean under its surface -- has a source of chemical energy that life can feed on.

And even as the spacecraft is gone, scientists hope that its enormous collection of data about Saturn -- the giant planet, its magnetosphere, rings and moons -- will continue to yield new discoveries for decades to come.

The year also marks some giant strides taken by China to emerge as a formidable space power. One of its satellites, which was sent to the skies to look for evidence of the annihilation or decay of dark matter particles in space, detected for the first time unexpected and mysterious signals in its measurement of high-energy cosmic rays, bringing scientists closer to proving the existence of the invisible matter.

Highlights of 2017:

• First observations of a merger between two faraway neutron stars

• The Moon became a key focus point for the US space agency in 2017, whether it was blocking out the Sun during the August 21 total solar eclipse, or reinvigorating the agency's human space exploration plans

• End of the Cassini spacecraft's 13-year tour of Saturn

• Discovery of the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star outside our solar system

• First known interstellar object to travel through our solar system spotted

• A Chinese satellite detected mysterious signals in its measurement of high-energy cosmic rays, bringing scientists closer to proving the existence of dark matter.

  (Gokul Bhagabati can be contacted at gokul.b@ians.in)

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By Venkatachari Jagannathan

Chennai, Dec 28 (IANS) The year 2017 could be said to be one of mixed fortunes for the Indian space agency as it launched the much-awaited four-tonne rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mk III (GSLV-Mk III); put into orbit 104 satellites in a single mission; sent up the South Asia Satellite; and also crossed the double century mark of launching foreign satellites.

With the size of earth observation satellites reducing and the future trend moving towards a constellation of small satellites rather than a large one, India's space agency is developing a smaller rocket that can carry satellites weighing up to 500 kg.

But on the negative side, India's long-due satellite navigation system (NavIC) faced serious problems with the atomic clocks in a couple of satellites developing problems.

The clocks are important to provide precise locational data.

The mission to put into orbit a replacement for the first of the seven navigation satellites didn't succeed as the lighter Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) failed in its mission.

The year also saw India taking steps towards opening up the sector for private players as the government sought comments on its Draft Space Activities Bill.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had a great start with a record satellite launch and good going for the major part of the year but wound up 2017 smarting after an unexpected disaster.

In February India set a world record in the number of satellites launched in a single mission by successfully putting into orbit 104 satellites, including the country's own Cartosat-2 earth observation satellite.

This was followed by the copy book-style launch of the South Asia Satellite, intended to serve "economic and developmental priorities" of South Asian nations, using its heavier GSLV-Mk II rocket.

In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tasked ISRO to develop a satellite for use by the SAARC countries. But Pakistan declined the use of an India-developed satellite.

One of the unique aspects of the South Asia Satellite is that ISRO decided to have electric power for it -- without cutting down on the volume of traditional on-board fuel -- to check its performance for use in future satellites.

In May, India scored a double success, launching its latest -- and heaviest so far -- 3,136 kg GSAT-19 communication satellite with its brand new and heaviest GSLV-Mk III with a cryogenic engine.

While Indian space scientists named the 640 tonne rocket "fat boy", the Telugu media nicknamed it "Bahubali" as, like the hero in the massively successful film lifts a heavy Lingam, it carried the heaviest satellite by an Indian rocket.

The month of June saw ISRO completing yet another multiple satellite launch, putting into orbit the Cartosat satellite, Nano satellite NIUSAT and 29 foreign satellites from 14 countries.

In the process, ISRO crossed the double century mark in launching foreign satellites. India started launching foreign satellites in 1999.

The June month also saw India adding GSAT-17 to its fleet of communication satellites after it was launched into orbit by the heavy-lift rocket Ariane 5 from Kourou in French Guiana.

And there ended the tale of ISRO's success for 2017.

The last day of August turned out to be a black Thursday for ISRO as it suffered a serious setback after its PSLV rocket failed to deliver India's navigation satellite in its intended orbit.

The 1,425 kg Indian Regional Navigation Satellite-1H (IRNSS-1H), got stuck inside the rocket's upper deck as the heat shield did not separate to let it out.

"The rocket heat shield didn't separate. The satellite is inside the heat shield," ISRO Chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar said.

"The PSLV rocket has been successful for the past several years. So, the question of design failure does not arise. It could be an issue of a failed component or a process quality issue," M.Y.S. Prasad, a former Director of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, told IANS.

While the Failure Analysis Committee (FAC) is yet to come out with its report on the cause of PSLV's failure, K. Sivan, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, told IANS that failure of the pyro elements could be the reason for the non-separation of the heat shield.

Normally, the heat shield would separate after on-board computers give the command to ignite the explosives. The explosives would then ignite and explode to separate the two parts of the heat shield joined by bolts.

He said ISRO is further tightening the allowable dispersion, or variance from the ideal performance parameter, for all the systems in the PSLV.

Meanwhile, Sivan said the preliminary design for the proposed small four-stage rocket that would weigh around 100 tonnes is ready and its feasibility study has also been conducted.

The first rocket would be ready in two years once the project gets the necessary approvals, he added.

The PSLV rocket has three variants weighing between 230 tonnes and 320 tonnes, with a carrying capacity ranging between 1,100 kg and 1,900 kg.

Looking forward to 2018, Sivan said it is going to be an eventful year with several launches, including the country's second Chandrayaan moon mission.

Sivan said ISRO will be launching a Cartosat satellite and several foreign satellites as piggy-back with the PSLV rocket some time in January 2018.

He said the country's heaviest communication satellite -- the GSAT 11, weighing over five tonnes -- would be launched next year by Arianespace's Ariane rocket.

2017: Indian space scene in capsule

• Enforcement Directorate (ED) attached Rs.79.76 crore funds of Devas Multimedia Ltd under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for its alleged illegal deal with ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation

• Renowned Indian space scientist U.R. Rao passed away aged 85

• Launched four-ton capacity rocket GSLV-Mk III

• Put into orbit South Asia Satellite

• PSLV rocket failed to launch navigation satellite

• Three atomic clocks in first navigation satellite failed

  (Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)

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New Delhi, Dec 28 (IANS) Amidst tension on both the eastern and western borders, and continuing terror attacks, India in 2017 took a step toward playing the role of the "net security provider" in the region and also pushing domestic defence manufacturing in the country.

The year also saw India getting its first full-time woman Defence Minister in Nirmala Sitharaman who, since taking over, has visited a number of installations across the country, including the forward areas. The minister also started a new norm of meeting the services chiefs daily and vowed to clear all pending projects under consideration of the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) by year-end by holding fortnightly meetings.

The year saw India bring in a new system to push the private sector in defence manufacturing in the country, with a chapter on Strategic Partnership being added to the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) in May.

The first contract under this arrangement, where an Indian private company will be selected for tying up with a foreign company to manufacture certain crucial defence equipment, is yet to be signed.

India being the largest importer of arms -- accounting for 13 per cent of global arms imports between 2012 and 2016 -- both former Defence Minister Arun Jaitley and his successor Sitharaman have talked about the significance of domestic defence manufacturing and the need for the country to have more local components in its military equipment.

Ceasefire violations spurted along the India-Pakistan frontier, with 771 being reported on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir -- that is under the Army's operational control -- up to December 10 this year. This is a three-fold rise compared to 228 by Pakistani forces in 2016.

Along the India-China border, while no bullets have been fired in 40 years, a 73-day stand-off was witnessed at Doklam in Sikkim over the building of a road by the Chinese military in the area that is claimed by Bhutan. Indian troops stalled the work citing the disputed status of Doklam and its proximity to a key artery in the northeast. The crisis was resolved on August 28 after both the armies retreated from the point of the face-off.

As the two nations were in a wait-and-watch mode, Indian Army tightened its preparedness at the eastern border and so did China. The period also saw a scuffle between Chinese and Indian soldiers in Ladakh and a spurt in the number of Chinese ships in the Indian Ocean.

Submarines and ships of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) have maintained a regular presence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) in the name of conducting anti-piracy patrols, with an average of seven to eight PLAN ships in the region at any given time. But, in August, for about two weeks there were 14 Chinese Naval ships in the IOR, which has been attributed to the vessels heading for an exercise, and a changeover in anti-piracy patrol duties.

Maritime security came in the forefront of India's defence and diplomatic negotiations with a number of friendly nations, and the trilateral Malabar naval exercise between India, the US and Japan from July 9-17 that saw China bristling.

The Indian Navy re-oriented its deployment philosophy to Mission-Based-Deployments to fit its role of being a "net security provider" in the region and had its ships in international waters from the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden in the west to the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman sea in the east on permanent deployment.

A total of 65 Indian Navy warships had been deployed at various times on anti-piracy operations till December 17, safely escorting more than 3,788 ships, including 405 Indian ships. Till date the Indian Navy has thwarted 44 piracy attempts and apprehended 120 pirates.

Maritime security also remained in the forefront of India's diplomatic and defence engagements with a number of countries, including the US, France and Singapore, which has offered its Changi Naval base close to South China Sea to India for logistic support to Indian Navy ships.

While Malabar saw India's prominent naval exercise with the US, India and Russia held their first ever tri-services exercise -- Indra
(This story has not been edited by Social News XYZ staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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New Delhi, Dec 28 (IANS) It was another glorious year for literature with its top prizes honouring the universality and diversity of human experience, a glittering abundance of compelling reads -- including one revisiting a half-century-old classic -- by established masters, emerging talent and gifted debutants, and a refreshing lack of controversy that convulsed other fields of culture, especially mass entertainment.

The year also saw the departure of a large number of eminent writers, spanning Nobel Prize winners to authors of popular crime and horror fiction, authors of manifestos of feminism or cultural appreciation, and of enduring philosophical travelogues or children's favourites.

After last year's controversy for selecting versatile American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, the Swedish Academy played it a bit safer with the Nobel Prize for Literature, choosing Kazuo Ishiguro for his novels which uncover "the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world".

The Japanese-born British writer, however, also exemplifies lack of national landscapes, being possibly the award's first recipient who doesn't write in his mother tongue or just about his homeland(s) or times.

The Man Booker Award -- for the second consecutive year -- went to an American with George Saunders winning for his first novel, depicting a great American President, who had a strange relation with death (including several premonitions of his own).

Set one night in a cemetery, "Lincoln in the Bardo" takes Abraham Lincoln to a strange afterlife where the soul of his young son, who has just died, has gone. While Bardo is a Tibetan concept, Saunders adds Ancient Egyptian and Christian views of afterlife in a poignant tour-de-force that makes one laugh, cry and wonder at our attraction towards our transient life.

Meanwhile, there was a deluge of books and though any selection can only be limited and subjective, let's try.

Among fiction, we must first pick that doyen of espionage stories, John Le Carre's "A Legacy of Spies", which revisits his epic "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" (1963) to provide both a prequel and sequel to this bleak tale.

Among offerings from other legends were "Men Without Women", a short story collection from Haruki Murakami in his usual disturbingly existentialist form, and Hanif Kureshi's "The Nothing" about an 80-year-old, wheel-chair bound, sex-addicted but impotent man who once hung out with the Who's who, but now can't stop a philanderer in his own house.

Then Hollywood star Tom Hanks added a new role to his repertoire with his "Uncommon Type", a unique collection of short stories featuring typewriters in some way; Karachi policeman Omar Shahid Hamid penned another evocative account of the interplay of high politics and crime in Pakistan's biggest city in "The Party Worker"; and "The Collected Stories of Homen Borgohain" pays tribute to a doyen among Assamese writers and a much-needed look into a region which is yet to get its due.

Anuja Chandramouli established a record with three books out simultaneously -- about one of Indian pantheon's most mysterious figures, a legendary Indian king and a remarkable queen. "Kartikeya: The Destroyer's Son", "Prithviraj Chauhan: The Emperor of Hearts" and "Rani Padmavati: The Burning Queen" supplemented her "Yama's Lieutenant and the Stone Witch", the second in her dark urban fantasy out earlier in the year.

Others deserving mention include Himanjali Sarkar's "Mrs C Remembers" on ravages of mental illness, Shirish Thorat's enthralling "Ticket to Syria" about radicalism destroying a Maldivian family, Zarreen Khan's "I Quit! Now What?" about the travails of the modern Indian working woman and Manu Joseph's "Miss Laila Armed and Dangerous", a savage satirical retelling of the Ishrat Jahan case, sparing no section.

In the year marking the 200th anniversary of her death, "Austenistan" (edited by Laaleen Sukhera) shows how Jane Austen's spirit can flourish in contemporary Pakistan.

Non-fiction is a tougher proposition but could include Allen Frances' "Twilight of American Sanity" about the social conditions that can explain Donald Trump's triumph, Oliver Stone's "The Putin Interviews" giving a look into the Russian President's mind and T.C.A. Raghavan's "The People Next Door" about the ups and downs of India-Pakistan relations.

K.V. Sridhar's "30 Second Thrillers" tells the stories behind many iconic Indian ads, Maya Jasanoff's "The Dawn Watch - Joseph Conrad in a Globalised World" is self-explanatory, and Jeff Koehler's "Where the Wild Coffee Grows" about the past and the future of the world's favourite drink.

Most sadly, it was time to bid adieu to novelist, art critic and poet John Berger (Jan 2), "The Exorcist" author William Peter Blatty (Jan 12), Nobel-winning St Lucian poet Derek Walcott (March 17), Colin Dexter, the creator of "Inspector Morse" (March 21), Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko (April 1), Robert M. Pirsig, of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (April 24), Michael Bond, known for his "Paddington Bear" series (June 27) and Kate Millett, whose landmark "Sexual Politics" was a manifesto for the modern feminist movement (September 6).

Let's see what 2018 has in store.

(With inputs from Himani Kothari)

(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)

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By Subhash K Jha

Mumbai, Dec 27 (IANS) If during the year 2017, the scarcity of new acting talent was scary, the abundance of directorial talent instantly lifted the spirit and made sore expectations soar. Yes, there is hope for Bollywood.

Around 28 new directors made their debut during the year that was. Here's looking at the finest directorial talent that broke into the Hindi cinema in 2017:

• Avinash Das ("Anaarkali of Aarah"): An astonishingly energetic adrenaline-pumping raunchy and ravishing debut by a director who knows the Indian heartland by heart, this was original and staggering in its deep empathy with the grasroot.

• Shubhashish Bhutiani ("Mukti Bhawan"): For a 24-year-old director, understanding the dynamics of death and decoding the irony of mortality with such warmth, vigour and compassion, was not only rare, it was miraculous. Bhutiani made a marvel of a movie whose message on life and death splashed against our senses like the holy waters of the Ganga.

• Konkona Sen Sharma ("A Death In The Gunj"): Konkona is a very quiet actress. To no one's surprise, she made her directorial debut with a thriller with an eerie stillness at its heart. Besides being a remarkably poised film, "A Death In The Gunj" also gave us incontrovertible proof of Vikram Massey's proclivity to assume character traits until he disappears into the person he plays. Can't wait to see what Konkona makes next.

• Sunaina Bhatnagar ("Dear Maya"): A lovely fragile and far from flamboyant feel-good film about follies of youth and the search for love. Thank you, Sunaina, for a film so steeped in old-world romanticism and for giving Manisha Koirala a chance to show us again that given a chance, she is incomparable.

• Rahul Dahiya ("G Kutta Se"): This Haryanvi-Hindi drama on honour killing simply gripped my guts. Powerful and unforgettable, this film's unabashed approach to sexual violence was something we have never seen before. Go for it. But next time, could the director please find a better title?

• Ravi Udyawar ("Mom"): How many directors get a chance to direct the mighty Sridevi in their first film? And how many come out of the trial by fire unscathed? Ad maker Ravi Udyawar managed this familiar rape-vendetta saga with tremendous restrain, eliciting remarkable performances from all from Sridevi to Abhimanyu Singh.

• Shanker Raman ("Gurgaon"): Cinematographer-turned-director Shanker Raman carved a riveting piece of Shakespearean cinema on a business empire soaked in blood and greed. If you haven't seen this film in theatres, do catch it on a smaller format.

• Ashwini Iyer Tiwari ("Bareilly Ki Barfi"): Now here is a female director who proved that the era of the Basu Chatterjee/ Hrishikesh Mukherjee comedies was not over. Ashwini's film sparkled with chuckles. It was engaging in a way we had forgotten comedies can be.

• Milind Dhaimade ("Tu Hai Mera Sunday"): This ad maker hawked his wife's jewellery mortgaged his home and sold the last shirt off his back to make this tender sweet bitter but illuminating film about life in the metropolis. Sure, life sucks. But then we get films about life that make it worth the pain.

• Suresh Triveni ("Tumhari Sulu"): The story of a rather clumsy housewife who constantly dreams of outdoing herself, told in a way that was fresh stimulating and revealing. Triveni is a talent to watch.

• Advait Chandan ("Secret Superstar"): Though there was something way too obvious about this story of a middle-class girl's realization of her dreams and though Aamir Khan gave his career's worst performance in this film, there was something supremely sincere and pure in Advait's storytelling.

• Devashish Makhija ("Ajji"): A dark grotesque tale of a grandmother's revenge for her little grandchild's rape, this one needed a strong constitution to be watched. But then our country needs that. A strong constitution.

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By Sanu George

Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 27 (IANS) The year 2017 is one that the Malayalam film industry would perhaps like to forget, given the unexpected and shocking after-effects of the abduction of a popular actress.

The industry was stunned when news broke in February that the young actress had been kidnapped after sunset when she was on her way to a friend's place in the commercial capital of the state, Kochi.

After a two-hour ordeal in a vehicle, she was dumped near the home of a well-known director, to whom she narrated what she had gone through.

Soon, the police began their work and, in a week's time, members of the gang that abducted her were arrested. When everyone thought that things had returned to normalcy, came news that the abduction was well planned and that it had been masterminded by Dileep -- Malayalam cinema's 50-year-old reigning superstar.

With state police chief Loknath Behra contending there was enough evidence to nail Dileep, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan took the firm position that the law should take its course, sans interference. Despite pressure from the top brass of the film industry, Dileep was arrested and it was only after 85 days in jail that he was granted bail.

With the chargesheet now filed naming Dileep as the eighth accused, it appears that the law will catch up with anyone who breaks it.

The incident had its fallout in the industry. The powerful actors' body -- the Association of Malayalam Movies Artistes (AMMA) -- headed by Lok Sabha member and comedian Innocent (an independent supported by the Chief Minister Vijayan's Communist Party of India-Marxist), saw murmurings with ageing superstars Mammootty and Mohanlal failing to get their points of view across after strong opposition surfaced against giving a clean chit to Dileep, especially from upcoming superstar Prithviraj and his supporters.

Following this, AMMA was forced to remove Dileep from the treasurer's post and he was also suspended from the association. With differences of opinion continuing, AMMA has been unable to even call a meeting of its executives after July.

For Dileep, however, there was one saving grace -- the box office success of his film "Rama Leela" that was released when he was in jail.

A fallout of the Dileep episode was the formation of a new organisation for women in the Malayalam film industry. Women from various fields -- from actresses to those behind the scenes -- got together under the leadership of Dileep's former wife Manju Warrier to launch the Women in Cinema Collective to identify the problems faced by women in the industry and explore ways to address them.

The new body had the backing of Chief Minister Vijayan who also announced the setting up of a new committee to study the issues faced by the women in the industry and directed it to submit a detailed report, which would be looked into.

Beyond the Dileep saga, it seemed all else was as usual in the industry. As in the recent past, the magic of superstar Mammootty appears to be on the wane, with three of his films failing to click at the box office in 2017. A fourth film is slated to hit the screens during the Christmas season.

As for the other reigning superstar, Mohanlal, his four releases for the year were nowhere near the huge success he had with two films in 2016.

Overall, because of the fallout of the abduction and the arrest of Dileep, it appears the sway that AMMA had over the political fabric of the state has suffered a huge setback. To some extent, the star status of those in the industry also suffered - there were sections of people who were not keen to go to the theatres to watch their films.

In the New Year, all eyes will be on the trial in the abduction case. And with the future of Dileep hanging in balance, the fluid state in the industry is only likely to continue.

(Sanu George can be contacted at sanu.g@ians.in)

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By Fakir Balaji

Bengaluru, Dec 27 (IANS) The resilient Indian IT industry, which has been going through challenging times on multiple fronts, faced disruption in 2017 from increasing automation and the boardroom spat in software major Infosys spilling into the public domain.

Though the $150-billion (almost Rs 10 trillion) software sector reconciled to single digit export growth of 7-8 per cent for the 2017-18 fiscal, demand for more automation and using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the services had put the vendors under pressure to hone the skills of their techies in the thousands and invest in new technologies to deliver on time for global enterprises.

"The Indian IT industry has been going through challenging times due to disruptive technologies, changing business models, rising protectionism, anti-globalisation and political and economic upheavals slowing its growth," Nasscom President R. Chandrashekhar told IANS here.

Brexit and the sluggish demand in Europe also lowered the industry's export growth from 9-10 per cent in the last fiscal (2016-17).

"The lower export outlook is a result of political and economic uncertainties impacting decision-making and discretionary spend," the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) admitted in a statement.

Software exports contribute about 80 per cent to the industry's revenue, with the US market generating 60 per cent of this, while the domestic market is projected to grow 10-11 per cent in 2017-18.

"Modernisation of clients' IT operations and adoption of new technologies such as SaaS (Software As A Service) applications, cloud platforms, BI (Business Intelligence), cognitive and embedded analytics for digital projects of enterprise customers have been the industry's growth drivers in 2017," noted Chandrashekhar.

According to Nasscom Chairman Raman Roy, the industry has reinvented and is focused on building digital solution offerings through a combination of business model changes and investment in products and platforms.

Admitting that the industry would need bold and imaginative action to resolve issues, Chandrashekhar said opportunities were unfolding, as new sectors such as healthcare, energy, transportation and manufacturing were also adopting ICT solutions to sustain, compete and grow.

Besides traditional sectors like banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), telecom, retail, utilities, transport and logistics, a host of other verticals are investing in automation, AI, cloud computing, data analytics, machine learning, robotics and Internet of Things (IoT).

"Adoption of new technologies by traditional and new sectors like healthcare, education, gaming and entertainment, e-commerce, digital, public services and internet mobile are making the IT industry invest in skilling and reskilling their talent to sustain the momentum," asserted Chandrashekhar.

On the flip side, innovation and tech start-ups have also faced headwinds, as angel investments and initial funding have sharply declined over the months.

"Though the ecosystem for start-ups is maturing and thriving on smart talent, raising funds to sustain growth and expand the market reach is challenging as their potential investors have become risk-averse due to uncertainty," noted Chandrashekhar, a former Telecom Secretary and regulator.

Skill shortage in developed countries implied huge opportunities for the Indian IT industry to invest in building human capital talent and developing new platforms for digital business.

Hiring in traditional services like application development, testing and maintenance will, however, continue to decline due to automation and AI.

"The declining trend in hiring is secular and will continue due to automation, course correction and technology induced changes in the business models," Chandrashekhar added.

Infosys, meanwhile, was rocked by boardroom battles that led to the dramatic exit of its first non-promoter Chief Executive, Vishal Sikka, in August and return of co-founder Nandan Nilekani as Chairman to steer it out of troubled times.

What began as an ethical issue for good governance the IT major is known for, had blown up into an open war between co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy and its previous Board on the buyout of a US-based software firm (Panaya) and the severance pay to its former Chief Financial Officer, Rajiv Bhansal, in October 2015.

While Sikka tried to play down the issue, terming governance lapse as media speculation, a whistle-blower's letter to the stock market regulator (SEBI) on the $200-million Panaya acquisition deal in February 2015 forced Murthy to red-flag the issue again with the Board members, including its former Chairman R. Seshasayee and Sikka.

When an international law firm and a risk consultancy found no evidence of wrongdoing in acquiring Panaya, Murthy insisted on making their report public and advised the Board to be transparent in all its decisions.

Unable to any more take the "unrelenting, baseless, malicious and personal attacks" on him, Sikka resigned on August 18 -- for which the previous Board blamed Murthy. The open spat also brought down the company's stock by 10 per cent in a single day.

The return of Nilekani, 62, as non-Executive Chairman on August 24 led to the exit of Seshasayee, co-chairman Ravi Venkatesan and Directors Jeffery S. Lehman and John Etchemendy.

Though Murthy was relieved to have Nilekani back to guide the company, he was not happy with the latter too finding no wrongdoing with the Panaya deal or excess compensation to Bansal.

To prove that "all is well that ends well", the Infosys Board on December 1 hired former Capgemini veteran software geek Salil Parekh as its new Chief Executive from January 2.

(Fakir Balaji can be contacted at fakir.b@ians.in)

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By Prashant Sood

New Delhi, Dec 26 (IANS) It was a year when Rahul Gandhi finally stepped into the Congress President's shoes and ran a doughty campaign in Gujarat which unnerved the ruling BJP. It was also a year when Congress won its first major victory in a state -- Punjab -- and also faced several disappointments.

The coming year poses bigger challenges for Gandhi as he builds the tempo for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by seeking to wrest key states from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and retain those ruled by his party.

The Congress is now in power in one Union territory and only four states, and two of these -- Karnataka and Meghalaya -- will go to the polls in the coming year.

Gandhi, who had been perceived as a reluctant heir to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, made quite a turnaround earlier this year as he launched scathing attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, posed sharp questions, debunked the government's economic policies and sought to portray the BJP as a party which has failed to deliver on its promises.

From the time of his visit to the US in September where he also addressed students, Gandhi has kept up the stridency of his attacks on Modi. He finally took up the role of Congress President from his mother Sonia Gandhi in December, long after many of his colleagues in the party had suggested he should.

Rahul Gandhi's challenges are both electoral and organisational. He has to bring the Congress back to its winning ways by speeding up decision-making, infusing energy and accountability, curbing factionalism, promoting strong leadership in states and strengthening the organisation at the booth level.

He has to craft a strategy that helps the Congress get overwhelming support of the vast middle-class and the youth who are seen to back Modi. With caste still a factor in populous states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Gandhi has to bring back groups that have traditionally been with the Congress.

It is a tall order and he will have to capitalise on any mistakes the BJP makes.

The Congress has lost a series of state elections since its debacle in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The party could win only Punjab among the seven states that went to polls this year and lost governments in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. It could not form governments in Goa and Manipur despite emerging as the single-largest party.

The Congress tally in Gujarat assembly polls -- the highest in the last 27 years -- has given the party a lot of hope, both in pyschological and strategic terms. Gujarat is the home turf of Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah and the Congress lost out on the majority mark by about a dozen seats even though it has been out of power in the state for over two decades.

Gandhi crafted a broad social alliance involving three leaders from distinct castes, mounted vociferous attacks on the Modi government's demonetisation move and its "flawed implementation" of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. The BJP had to offer concessions on GST and Modi had to launch a high-intensity campaign to save the BJP blushes.

But Gandhi's joining hands with Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls earlier this year to prevent the division of anti-BJP votes came a cropper. The Congress tally did not touch even double digits in the home state of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

The party lost seats in Rahul Gandhi's Amethi parliamentary constituency as also in Sonia Gandhi's Rae Bareli constituency. The BJP, which swept Uttar Pradesh -- the most populous state in the country which sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha -- later consolidated its position by its good show in the municipal elections in the state.

Eight states go to the polls next year and most of the big ones -- Karantaka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chattisgarh -- are expected to witness a largely direct contest between the BJP and the Congress.

Since its worst-ever performance in 2014, the Congress has not been able to defeat the BJP in any state election where the two parties have faced each other.

The Congress' showing in Gujarat also came on the back of a quota stir by the Patidar community and a campaign for empowerment of Dalits. While Congress backed the quota demand, this can backfire due to the competing interests of various caste groups in different parts of the country.

The electoral battles next year will test Gandhi's mettle as these will be fought directly under his charge as Congress president. These battles will also decide if he will emerge as a viable challenger Modi in 2019, besides impacting the opposition's strategy.

Bringing together disparate opposition groups with competing interests and support bases will be another challenge for Rahul Gandhi in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. Sonia Gandhi had deftly built a coalition ahead of 2004 Lok Sabha polls which paved the way for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) losing the elections.

Rahul Gandhi has sought to portray the BJP as a divisive party that thrives on controversies and has repeatedly questioned the Modi government's performance on jobs. He has sought to portray Modi as a friend of the "rich" and has sought to tap into the "growing economic inequality" and problems faced by farmers.

As a move towards ramping up the working of the party, he has decided to hold meetings of the Congress Working Committee, the party's highest decision-making body, every two months. Gandhi has said his plan is to transform the Congress from bottom upwards and he will like to bring in many new, young, exciting and dynamic faces.

Gandhi has a formidable opponent in Modi and his success will depend on his ability to establish himself as a dynamic, caring and energetic leader with a forward-looking vision for the country.

(Prashant Sood can be contacted at prashant.s@ians.in)

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By Biswajit Choudhury

New Delhi, Dec 25 (IANS) The 70th year since Independence will go down in Indian history since the country switched over to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, realising, thereby, the vision of a unified market in a federal system that guided the nationalist bourgeoisie in joining Mahatma Gandhis struggle to liberate India from the British.

Of course, the structural reform came accompanied with pain for trade and industry caught off-guard by the rigours of new compliance procedures. Queried by corporate leaders at industry chamber Ficci's 90th AGM here earlier this month on how GST was impacting through lower tax collections, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley put the onus on them.

"It is you from industry, who have been calling for so long to bring GST... and no sooner do these initial problems in implementing a reform of such scale appear, then you want to go back to the system we've had for 70 years," he said.

The earlier system was a myriad of central and state taxes where the movement of goods was slowed down by products being taxed multiple times and at different rates.

State level taxes replaced by the pan-India GST include state cesses and surcharges, luxury tax, state VAT, purchase tax, central sales tax, taxes on advertisements, entertainment tax, various forms of entry tax, and taxes on lotteries and betting.

Central taxes replaced by GST are service tax, special additional customs duties (SAD), additional excise duties on goods of special importance, central excise, additional customs duties, excise on medicinal and toilet preparations, additional excise duties on textiles and textile products, and cesses and surcharges.

The new indirect tax regime unifying the Indian market has four tax slabs of 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent.

It has a novel feature whereby goods and services providers get the benefit of input tax credit for the goods used, effectively making the real incidence of taxation lower than the headline taxation rate.

The second half of the year saw a radical reworking of the items within the four-slab tax structure by the supremely federal institution of the GST Council, whereby all but 50 of over 1,200 items remained in the highest 28 per cent bracket. Those retained included luxury and sin items, the cess on which goes to fund the compensation to states for the loss of revenue arising from implementing GST.

With the Council's decisions last month, GST has been cut on a host of consumer items such as chocolates, chewing gum, shampoos, deodorants, shoe polish, detergents, nutrition drinks, marble and cosmetics. Luxury goods such as washing machines and air conditioners have been retained at 28 per cent.

Eating out has become cheaper as all restaurants outside high-end hotels charging over Rs 7,500 per room will uniformly levy GST of five per cent. The facility of input tax credit for restaurants has, however, been withdrawn as they had not passed on this benefit to consumers.

Petroleum, including oil and gas, is a strategic sector that is still not under GST, while the industry has been pushing for its inclusion so as not to be deprived of the benefits of input credit.

Including real estate is another matter pending before the GST Council.

On the functioning of the Council, Jaitley who is its head, had this remarkable insight about the way in which it had effected such large-scale rationalisation of the item rates in a short span of "3-4 months".

"Everything has been achieved by consensus in the best spirit of cooperative federalism. There has been no politics, even from states which are controlled by opposition parties," he told a gathering of industry leaders here.

The other side of GST was revealed through what the International Monetary Fund described as "short-term disruptions".

With businesses going into a "de-stocking" mode on inventories in anticipation of the GST rollout from July and sluggish manufacturing growth, among other factors, pulled down growth in the Indian economy during the first quarter of this fiscal to 5.7 per cent, clocking the lowest under the Narendra Modi dispensation. Breaking a five-quarter slump, a rise in manufacturing sector output, however, pushed the growth rate higher to 6.3 per cent during the second quarter (July-September) of 2017-18.

Besides, technical glitches appearing on the GST Network portal, often unable to take the load of last-minute rush to file returns, marred the filing of returns by traders, forcing the government to postpone filing deadlines several times. The glitches also led to export refunds piling up, resulting in a grave situation of cash crunch for exporters, whose working capital was getting blocked.

In the final analysis, the GST balance sheet is provided by Gita Gopinath, Professor of International Studies and Economies at Harvard University, who is also the economic adviser to the Kerala Chief Minister.

"GST is a real reform. It is a way of formalising the economy. It is a very effective way of ensuring tax compliance, making it harder to earn black money. I mean, nothing ever goes away completely, but it just makes it harder to make it happen," Gopinath said in Mumbai earlier this month.

The icing on the cake came with the World Bank announcing earlier this year that India had jumped 30 places in its Ease of Doing Business rankings to get among the top 100 countries on the list. Though reforms in India's direct tax regime figured among the parameters considered in evaluation, GST had not been taken into account by the multilateral agency since their cut-off date was June 30.

(Biswajit Choudhury can be reached at biswajit.c@ians.in)

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By Aroonim Bhuyan

New Delhi, Dec 25 (IANS) Though the personal chemistry between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and new US President Donald Trump was the highlight of India-US ties in 2017, what has come as a huge boost to bilateral relations towards the end of the year is the key strategic geopolitical role for India in the new US security strategy.

At the same time, New Delhi made it clear that its foreign policy remains independent when it went with the rest of the world in voting in the UN General Assembly against Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Despite a change of guard in Washington, the India-US global strategic partnership remained strong as ever and a warm hug marked the first-ever meeting between Modi and Trump at the White House in June this year.

While Trump said that bilateral ties have "never been stronger", Modi said that both the countries were "committed to such a bilateral architecture that will take our strategic partnership to new heights".

According to a joint statement, the two leaders "resolved to expand and deepen the strategic partnership between the countries and advance common objectives".

"President Trump and Prime Minister Modi expressed confidence that, together, the United States and India will provide strong leadership to address global challenges and build prosperity for their citizens in the decades to come," the statement said.

And that is exactly what got reflected in the New Security Strategy (NSS) that Trump announced this month that sees India being mentioned no less than seven times.

"We welcome India's emergence as a leading global power and stronger strategic and defence partner," the NSS states. "We will seek to increase quadrilateral cooperation with Japan, Australia, and India."

This comes in the wake of the meeting between officials of India, the US, Japan and Australia in the Philippines last month in which the security and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region were discussed.

"We will expand our defence and security cooperation with India, a Major Defence Partner of the United States, and support India's growing relationships throughout the region," the NSS states.

It says that the US would "deepen our strategic partnership with India and support its leadership role in Indian Ocean security and throughout the broader region".

And what will come as music to New Delhi's ears is the reference to Pakistan from the perspective of terrorism.

"We will press Pakistan to intensify its counter-terrorism efforts, since no partnership can survive a country's support for militants and terrorists who target a partner's own service members and officials," the NSS states.

It also states that the US would encourage India to increase its economic assistance in the region.

Trump continued with his praise of Modi at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Vietnam last month where he said that the Indian leader was working to bring his country and its people together.

Soon after this, Trump and Modi again met on the sidelines of the ASEAN and East Asia Summits in the Philippines, a meeting that was described as "warm and productive".

Modi-Trump bonhomie apart, high-level visits continued between the two sides throughout the year.

After the Indian leader's visit to Washington in June, both US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited India.

From the Indian side, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, then Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu and Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan were among those who visited the US.

Another highlight of the India-US ties this year was President Trump's announcement of a new US policy on South Asia that called for India playing a key role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

The appointment of Kenneth Juster as the new US Ambassador in New Delhi came in for praise from all quarters. Juster is an old India hand who played a key role in the India-US civilian nuclear cooperation agreement.

On its part, New Delhi, reflecting the government's tendency of keeping faith in trusted people in key diplomatic posts, extended by a year the term of Indian Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna, who was to retire at November-end.

Another highlight was the visit of President Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump to Hyderabad for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, hosted by India for the first time.

This year also saw a shipment of American crude oil arriving in India, marking the first US oil export to India in more than four decades.

On the downside of the bilateral issue this year, however, was the H1-B visa issue that continues to remain prickly.

Soon after taking over as President, Trump called for stricter norms for issuance of H1-B visas, largely availed of by Indian IT firms. A private member's bill was also introduced earlier this year in the US Congress by Democrat Zoe Lofgren which seeks to increase the minimum salary of an H1-B visa holder to a whopping $130,000 from the current minimum of $60,000.

While Trump has spoken of restricting the H1-B visa system as part of his policy of putting Americans first, there have been no changes to it so far and for this year the same levels of 65,000 for general H1-B visas and 20,000 for those with advanced US degrees have been kept.

(Aroonim Bhuyan can be contacted at aroonim.b@ians.in)

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By Vishal Gulati

New Delhi, Dec 25 (IANS) The Trump administrations decision earlier this year to pull out of the historic 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, saying the Obama-era deal was an attempt to diminish the US economy and take jobs away, has not stopped incredible global momentum to curb global warming.

Environmental advocates believe that, amidst the shadow of the US decision, 2017 has seen progress in new climate action, ranging from the World Bank announcing it won't fund upstream oil and gas projects after 2019 to a range of commitments from brown to green investments by companies joining the Global Big Shift campaign.

In a major initiative, the World's No.1 polluter, China, this week announced plans to start a market-based carbon-trading system, initially in over 1,700 power-generating firms, to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius and aiming to cut greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

Taking the lead, French President Emmanuel Macron this month called "The One Planet" summit in Paris -- the birthplace of the Paris Agreement -- to mark its second anniversary, to speed up development of decarbonisation pathways by nations and to do something serious about climate mitigation and adaptations.

Observers say the summit was both a celebration of the historic achievement of the Paris Agreement and an opportunity for the countries that are willing to go further and faster in transitioning their economies to demonstrate the action they are taking.

"President Macron deserves a lot of credit for marking the second anniversary of the Paris Agreement by getting world leaders together. The climate challenge needs more than a single champion, but President Macron is certainly doing his bit," British charity Christian Aid's Senior Climate Change Advisor, Mohamed Adow, told IANS.

At The One Planet summit, more than 200 civil society organisations from nearly 60 countries released a letter calling on multilateral development banks, including the World Bank Group, and G20 governments to end public financial support for fossil fuels by 2020 at the latest.

With the US government withdrawing funds to deal with climate change, such as the $2 billion pledge to the Green Climate Fund, the European Union announced nine billion euro climate finance contribution at The One Planet summit to achieve climate goals.

In a related announcement at the summit, 225 of the most influential global institutional investors, with more than $26.3 trillion in assets under management, launched a new collaborative initiative to engage with the world's largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters to step up action on climate change.

The Paris gathering took place less than a month after the successful conclusion of the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn (COP-23) in November and was the first in a series of international summits to help countries to raise the bar and bolster their national climate action plans -- crucial to achieving the Paris Agreement's goals.

Interestingly, Trump is continuing support to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, one of the most successful international environmental treaties that celebrated its 30th anniversary in Montreal last month.

India, a signatory to the Protocol since 1992, has been proactive in compliance and played a key role in achieving the historic Kigali Amendment last year for phasing down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), powerful greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change.

The parties to the Montreal Protocol committed $540 million for the developing nations during the joint 11th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Vienna Convention and the 29th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol that were held in Canada last month.

And the US alone will take a nearly 25 per cent share of the total funding.

"We've seen incredible support for the Kigali Amendment, and much of this is due to the fact that we've also had strong support from businesses," UN Environment head Erik Solheim told IANS.

"The process is proceeding very well and financial support for the mechanism has also been very strong. As such, I'm optimistic that this trend will continue," Solheim added.

At the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, India reiterated provisions for finance -- both for adaptation and mitigation - and technology transfer for climate actions from the developed nations.

A day after a major victory for India and developing countries on climate action before 2020 that the developed world agreed to discuss in subsequent two years, Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Harsh Vardhan told IANS that provisions for finance, technology transfer and capacity-building support to developing nations are critical.

Stressing that COP-23 was crucial as it would set the stage for the 2018 Facilitative Dialogue, accelerate pre-2020 action and firm up the modalities for implementing the Paris Agreement, he said India has undertaken ambitious mitigation and adaptation action.

The Centre for Science and Environment's Deputy Director, Chandra Bhushan, however, believes this year was a damp squib as far as global environmental negotiations and actions are concerned.

"There is a big gap between the global action required and the collective action of countries to address issues like climate change. In 2017, this gap was further widened with the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement; 2017, therefore, was a damp squib as far as global environmental negotiations and actions were concerned," Bhushan, who was given the Partnership Award by UN Environment last month for providing policy and research support to the negotiations during the Kigali Amendment, told IANS.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)

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By Rajnish Singh

New Delhi, Dec 24 (IANS) Concerted action against militants and appointment of an interlocutor to carry forward the dialogue process were key aspects of Centre's policy on Jammu and Kashmir in the past year as it sought to expose the narrative of the separatists through a crackdown on their flow of funds from the "neighbouring country" to finance unrest in the state.

The year also saw the Home Ministry dealing with the issue of Rohingyas, repeated ceasefire violations in Jammu and Kashmir as also Maoist violence in some parts of the country.

A total of 203 militants were killed in Jammu and Kashmir in till December 10 - - the highest in the past seven years -- as part of Centre's "tough" strategy to root out militancy from the trouble-torn Valley.

Those killed included some top militant commanders such as Lashkar-e-Taiba's Bashir Ahmad Wani, Abu Dujana and Junaid Mattoo, and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen's Sabzar Ahmad Bhat.

The security forces had a hard time last year in dealing with incidents of stone-pelting following the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani.

The incidents of coordinated stone-pelting came down drastically this year and have been attributed to action by the security forces against militant groups as also probes by National Investigating Agency (NIA) into "terror funding".

The arrests of separatist leaders and others by NIA were preceded by efforts to obtain information through improved intelligence. The government has also made efforts to wean away youth from the influence of separatists by taking steps to boost investment and employment in the state.

As part of its ongoing probe in the terror-funding cases, NIA seized nearly Rs 36.5 crore in demonetised currency in November.

The government has said its policy to restore peace and normalcy in Kashmir has focus on five Cs -- "compassion, communication, co-existence, confidence-building and consistency".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to the Valley in his August 15 Independence Day speech from New Delhi's Red Fort and said Kashmir's problems can be solved only by embracing its people, not with bullets or abuses.

As part of efforts to address the sense of alienation and improve infrastructure in the sensitive border state, the Modi government released funds under its Rs 80,000 crore (over $12 billion) package for the state announced in 2015.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh made five visits to Kashmir during the year and emphasised that the government was willing to talk to anyone in the state.

In October, the government appointed Dineshwar Sharma, a former Intelligence Bureau chief, as its special representative to "initiate and carry forward a dialogue with elected representatives, various organisations and concerned individuals in the State of Jammu and Kashmir".

One of Sharma's objectives apparently is to deal with and contain radicalisation among the youth in the state.

Pakistan resorted to repeated ceasefire violations and the Home Ministry gave clear instructions to the Border Security Force (BSF) "not to count bullets and give befitting reply".

Around 900 ceasefire violations -- the highest in a decade -- were committed by Pakistani forces both along the Line of Control and the International Border in Jammu and Kashmir till December 10. The firing caused some injuries to the civilians and disrupted their lives.

The terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir included one on Amarnath pilgrims on July 10 in which seven persons were killed.

Ambush by Maoists in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district in April, in which 25 Central Reserve Police Forces (CRPF) troopers were killed, reflected the continued challenges faced by the Home Ministry in containing violence by Left Wing extremists.

The ministry also made efforts to provide succour to people in over 19 incidents of natural disasters including Cyclone Ockhi.

The Home Ministry rejected demands for giving concessions to Rohingyas, who faced violence in their settlements in Myanmar, and made it clear that those who have come into India were illegal immigrants and need to be deported back.

Around 22,000 Rohingyas are estimated to be living in various parts of India.

The Home Ministry held meetings with chief ministers of states bordering Pakistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh which were aimed at enhancing border security and curbing illegal immigration, drug peddling, fake currency, and human trafficking.

In a major initiative, the Home Ministry approved a Rs 25,000-crore outlay for upgrading the internal security apparatus in states under an umbrella scheme on modernisation of police forces.

The unease in relationship with Pakistan also got reflected in the number of visas issued.

Against 52,525 visas issued to Pakistan nationals in 2016, 34,445 were issued in 2017. However, the number of visas issued to Bangladeshi nationals increased to 12,89,332 compared to 9,33,695 in 2016.

The ministry also stepped up efforts to integrate various organs of the criminal justice system such as the police, courts, prisons, prosecution, forensic laboratories, finger prints and juvenile homes with the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) database.

Intelligence estimates have put the number of Indians who had gone to fight for the terror group Islamic State after their radicalisation at 30.

The ministry kept a strict tab on the reports about online radicalisation of youth by the Islamic State.

(Rajnish Singh can be contacted at rajnish.s@ians.in)

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By Bappaditya Chatterjee

Kolkata, Dec 24 (IANS) The real estate sector, which witnessed a slew of policy measures through the year, experienced a market slowdown but the affordable segment emerged as its growth driver, say property consultants and developers.

The policy reforms, however, promise to make residential real estate dealings more transparent than ever before and the market is expected to see at least a partial recovery in 2018 on the back of revived confidence of homebuyers, fewer new launches, improving sales and declining unsold units.

The Centre's surprise demonetisation announcement late last year was a "real shocker" for the sector. But, simultaneously, it helped the sector to resist unaccounted funds from finding their way into the secondary and even primary sales segments as well as the luxury housing section.

Meanwhile, the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA) was rolled out to improve financial discipline, boost market transparency and give consumers confidence and a clear legal choice for dealing with errant developers and brokers. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) was introduced to improve taxation transparency and the Benami Properties Act got further amended to make it more effective in curbing anonymous real estate transactions and ownership.

"There were reforms galore which literally altered the DNA of the Indian real estate business, focusing on eliminating black money and improving market transparency so as to make the country's residential real estate a better place for consumers and investors," Anarock Property Consultants' Chairman Anuj Puri told IANS.

National Real Estate Development Council Vice Chairman Parveen Jain said all stakeholders adopted a wait and watch policy following the note ban and introduction of RERA and GST.

"This resulted in a somewhat slowdown in the sector as everyone was trying to understand the after-effects of demonetisation and the effects of RERA and GST. No one is willing to venture into new deals until and unless things settle down," Jain told IANS.

GST, applicable to the purchase of homes in under-construction projects, prompted home buyers to either buy completed projects or hold back their purchase decisions. Also, developers halted sales in projects not registered under RERA across major cities, JLL India CEO and Country Head Ramesh Nair said.

"These factors led to a quarterly sales decline in five of the top seven cities to an all-time low of 4.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2017," Nair told IANS.

Residential launches up to the third quarter of 2017 saw a decline of 33 per cent compared to the same period in 2016. Simultaneously, affordable housing saw a rise of 27 per cent in the first three quarters, mostly by taking advantage of the new government regulations and incentives for homes in that category.

"Affordable housing is an attractive proposition both for developers and consumers as the demand is huge and largely unmet. The high focus of the central government has resulted in the availability of more funding options for the developers such as ECB, FDI and debt-financing from national financial institutions at highly competitive rates," Cushman & Wakefield's Senior Director, Research Services, Siddhart Goel told IANS.

However, the flip side is the implementation RERA by the states. As per the central government schedule, by the end of July 2017, all states should have implemented the RERA with full functionality.

"Many states are still either in the process or don't have requisite infrastructure. Dilutions in a few RERA rules by a some states, has also hurt buyer confidence," Knight Frank Chief Economist Samantak Das told IANS.

According to an ICRA study, by the close of third quarter of 2017, most of the major states had notified their real estate rules and set up real estate regulatory authorities as required under the RERA Act. While new project launches have remained subdued even after RERA implementation, the developers continue to push sales in ongoing projects, with expectations of improved customer confidence in those projects which are approved by the state RERA.

However, the inclusion of land and real estate (completed properties) under the ambit of GST has been a topic that has been debated significantly and will ultimately require a political solution since land is a state subject and any such move will require the concurrence of state governments.

"Any such move could bolster the transparency and compliance of real estate transactions (especially in the secondary market) since there would be an incentive to report transactions at market price to claim full tax benefit," said Shubham Jain, Vice President and Sector Head-Corporate Ratings, ICRA Limited.

The industry is expected to somewhat stabilise in 2018 as both real estate developers and customers become attuned to the changed regulatory scenario.

Developers are likely to take a cautious approach as far as new project launches are concerned, given the over-supply situation in various markets, along with their own stressed balance sheet positions.

The focus is likely to remain on liquidation of existing stock and reduction of the debt overhang before new projects are launched. This is already visible from the trend of decreasing quantum of absolute stock of unsold inventory available with the developers.

(Bappaditya Chatterjee can be contacted at bappaditya.c@ians.in)

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Kolkata, Dec 23 (IANS) Ditching their neutral white laboratory coats, Indian scientists this year hit the streets in large numbers deploring budget cuts and the Centres backing of "unscientific ideas" and "pseudo-science" amid global attention over a peacock-celibacy controversy.

The negative attention was offset by the warmth and solidarity exhibited by Indian scientists as they opened up lab spaces to help stranded peers in the aftermath of US President Donald Trump's immigration/travel ban while the launch of a South Asian Satellite and Nobel win for the discovery of gravitational waves brought the spotlight back on "real science" and on the Indian participation in mega science projects.

In a follow-up to the mammoth global "March for Science" in April, a section of Indian scientists, students and enthusiasts supplemented the international effort with pan-India rallies on August 9 to press for higher funds for basic research and to demand that the propagation of unscientific ideas and religious intolerance be stopped.

Participants in 15 cities, including New Delhi, Kolkata and Bengaluru, responded to appeals by eminent scientists and activists, including the late P.M. Bhargava, a noted molecular biologist and a known voice of dissent, who passed away earlier this year.

The scientists participating in the march demanded that the propagation of "unscientific, obscurantist ideas and religious intolerance" be curbed.

The idea of a protest also gained traction following the outburst over a Rajasthan High Court judge's claims about peacocks being "celibate". Statements such as "the peahen gets pregnant" only by "swallowing the tears of the peacock" had triggered a huge outcry in social media as well as in public discussions.

Eminent Indian ornithologists had denounced the comments and expressed shock at the "non-science"-based remarks.

And, in what could be seen as an influence of politics in science, the judge had also suggested that the cow should replace the tiger as the national animal because "it's holy".

In the midst of all this, the government announced a panel to conduct what it said will be "scientifically validated research" on cow-derivatives -- including its urine -- and their benefits (Panchgavya).

Meanwhile, the Indian Institute of Science Alumni Association (IIScAA), Bengaluru, was forced to cancel a workshop on "Astrology as a Scientific Tool for Individual Progress" following a social media outcry and outrage from the faculty.

Another thorny issue that Indian science faced in the year was the menace of fake or predatory journals. The country is among the biggest contributors of fake or pseudo journals.

India's leading inter-disciplinary science journal, Current Science, raised an alert on a predatory journal that was operating from an IP address located in Turkey, snaring unsuspecting researchers into submitting and promising to publish research articles.

But there was much to cheer about as the year came to an end.

As three American scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their contribution to detecting gravitational waves -- ripples in the fabrics of space-time which were predicted by Albert Einstein a hundred years ago -- the Indian gravitational wave research and astrophysics fraternity was thrust back into the limelight.

They saw it as a major encouragement to participate in mega science projects and be leaders in them.

Close on the heels of the Nobel announcement in October came a "Diwali dhamaka". This was the detection of the first gravitational waves produced by the merger of two ancient remnants of stars known as neutron stars by scientists at the LIGO and Virgo detectors and the world over, including in India.

What intrigued people worldwide was the observation that the very high energy released in this process sustains exotic phenomena that may have produced a major fraction of the gold in the universe.

But the event that stood out as the show stopper in India's science diplomacy policy was the successful launch of the South Asian Satellite. This is the first time a communication satellite built and launched by India will be put to the common use of the South Asian countries.

Indian science was also celebrated outside the sub-continent.

London's Science Museum kicked-off its "Illuminating India: 5,000 Years of Science and Innovation" exhibition in October, narrating through artefacts the remarkable history of Indian innovation and discovery that has been influencing and changing people's lives for 5,000 years.

(Sahana Ghosh can be contacted at sahana.g@ians.in)

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By Durga Chakravarty

New Delhi, Dec 22 (IANS) Big names, extravagant budgets, picturesque locales and brilliant promotions -- and yet, insufficient box office collections. The Year 2017 has been a mixed bag for stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Kangana Ranaut and Ranbir Kapoor.

While hopes were pinned high on some of their films, they fell flat in front of the audience, who had expected much more than what they got.

Industry experts like Girish Johar and Vinod Mirani have described 2017 as a "very disappointing" and "bad" year as the Hindi film industry was rattled by failures. And amidst that came films like "Toilet: Ek Prem Katha", "Golmaal Again" and "Fukrey Returns", which received a good response.

IANS has compiled a mix of films that came with high expectations but failed to strike a chord with the audience.

• "Jagga Jasoos": A musical drama starring Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif, the film had been in production for over three years. It was finally released in 2017. The film met with a lukewarm response at the box office as it collected a mere Rs 54.16 crore. The brouhaha over the film's collection even led to Ranbir's father Rishi Kapoor lashing out at director Anurag Basu, calling him a monkey and saying that he "indulged too much in the film".

• "Tubelight": After a string of blockbusters including "Bajrangi Bhaijaan" and "Sultan", Salman Khan failed to light up the box office with "Tubelight", set against the 1962 Sino-Indian war. The expectations from the film were high due to the pairing of Salman and director Kabir Khan, who have in the past given hits like "Ek Tha Tiger" and "Bajrangi Bhaijaan".

  The "Dabangg" star had reportedly promised to return money to the distributors for the loss and later trade analyst Komal Nahta confirmed on Twitter that the actor will refund approximately Rs 35 crore.

• "Bhoomi" : Ever since actor Sanjay Dutt was released after serving his jail term for illegal possession of arms in a case related to the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, all eyes were set for his comeback film, helmed by Omung Kumar. Though the film ran high on emotions, it failed to impress his fans.

• "Jab Harry Met Sejal": Great destinations, lots of travel and a very strong story line -- this is what one expects from an Imtiaz Ali film. Featuring superstar Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma, the film, which was criticised for its incoherent story line, didn't mint the expected moolah. Shah Rukh too reportedly gave refunds to the movie's distributors.

• "Rangoon": Directed by National Award winner Vishal Bhardwaj, the film had an ensemble cast of Kangana Ranaut, Saif Ali Khan and Shahid Kapoor. Despite garnering good reviews, the film was a disaster at the box office as it only collected Rs 20.68 crore. After facing a setback with the failure of the period drama, Kangana, who tasted success with films like "Queen", said that "people have a tendency to encash on someone else's failure", and will give a "discount" after the box office debacle.

• "Sarkar 3": The third instalment of the popular "Sarkar" franchise saw some of the sought-after names like Amitabh Bachchan, Manoj Bajpayee and Jackie Shroff coming together, but the film reportedly made less than Rs 20 crore at the box office.

• "Ok Jaanu": Released in January, the audience was looking forward to the offering by Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha Kapoor, who were teaming up again after they created magic with "Aashiqui 2". A remake of Mani Ratnam's Tamil film "O Kadhal Kanmani", it only raked in Rs 23.64 crore in India, and comparisons with the original didn't work in its favour either.

  (Durga Chakravarty can be contacted at durga.c@ians.in )

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