By Sushma Ramachandran, IANS,

It's more bad news for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government on the economic front, even as it looks forward to the general election in 2009. Industrial growth has dipped to a six-year-low of three percent in March this year. Coupled with raging inflation, the economic outlook is far from satisfactory at a time when both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram were expecting to pat themselves on the back for a great five-year performance.

By Mayank Chhaya, IANS,

The media in India ought to impose a pretty long moratorium on Amitabh Bachchan interviews.

The media bakes the same old banalities and garnishes them as profound questions. And Bachchan, with no other option left, responds in a mockingly serious tone. Like a jaded couple trapped in a dull matrimony both the media and Bachchan have run out of things to say. Can you blame either? They have been tangoing for the past 30 years. There are no new moves left. They can only grunt at each other.

55 year-old Syed Abdullah Tariq runs an Islamic group based in Rampur, a town in western Uttar Pradesh, that focuses on dialogue with Hindus. An engineer by training, he was one of the chief disciples of the late Maulana Shams Naved Usmani, a noted Islamic scholar who had also a deep knowledge of the Hindu scriptures.

By Firoz Bakht Ahmed, IANS,

Today, Islam is under scanner owing to so many voices stating that the religion advocates violence. Not all of them can be wrong as people judge by what they see and today these terrorists speak and act violently in the name of Islam.

Jaipur, Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad like many others are global cities and the terrorism that struck here, too, is a global phenomenon. As a human being and an Indian Muslim, I literally wept over the needless deaths of those who died or were maimed while shopping during the beginning of the summer break.

By M. Burhanuddin Qasmi

Terror struck us yet again — this time in the pink city Jaipur. Till Wednesday evening, the unofficial toll was 90 killed, and with over 200 injured. It was 7:30 pm, 13th May, prime time for shopping when daytime temperature was above 40 degree. Markets were bustling but within minutes everything was shattered and it was chaos all-around India's one of beautiful tourist places.

By K. Datta, IANS,

Close on the heels of the shocking slapping incident involving Harbhajan Singh and S. Sreesanth and those fines imposed on Sourav Ganguly, Shane Warne and Ishant Sharma, the DLF Indian Premier League (IPL) has made news with the midstream sacking of the CEO of Bangalore's Royal Challengers because the team had failed to get into the winning habit.

By Kul Bhushan, IANS

Despite condemning black money, non-resident Indians have only helped to increase it. According to Aman Agarwal, professor of finance at the Indian Institute of Finance, New Delhi, the total amount of black money globally is estimated between $2.1 and 2.5 trillion. This is roughly about seven percent of the world's GDP.

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) - Pakistan has started talks with the Taliban in the northwestern province of the country bordering on Afghanistan. Kabul authorities fear that Islamabad will stop military operations, thus giving the Taliban a chance to become more active in Afghanistan.

The two proposals on stabilizing Afghanistan, which Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf made during his visit to China in mid-April, do not look surprising in this light.

By Tarun Vijay, IANS,

What difference does it make who signed the Pokhran files? Brajesh Mishra, the powerful former security advisor to then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, revealed a bit too late. There was a time when the Congress must have felt elated to claim making India nuclear. The first Pokhran test (in 1974) was their contribution and Indira Gandhi dared the Americans bravely. Should we be ashamed of it or try to delete that chapter from Indian history just because she happened to be another party's leader?

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS,

Since electoral considerations rather than a genuine desire for women's empowerment were behind the latest move to revive the 12-year-old legislation for reserving parliamentary and assembly seats for women, its fate may be no different from what happened earlier.

The very manner in which the measure was introduced in the Rajya Sabha, with several women MPs shielding the law minister from unruly critics when he tabled the bill, showed that its passage would not be easy.