With the filing of nominations for the first phase of Bihar assembly elections ending Friday evening, the picture is still not clear in the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan on the issue of seat sharing.
On the other hand, Nitish Kumar-led NDA has finalized its seat sharing. Janata Dal(U) and BJP will contest 101 seats each, Chirag Paswan’s LJP will contest 29 seats, while Updendra Kushwaha’s RLM and Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM will contest 6 seats each.
Home Minister Amit Shah met Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar in Patna on Friday morning to chalk out poll campaign coordination and reigning in of rebel candidates.
In the Mahagathbandhan camp, Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi phoned Lalu Yadav after VIP party chief Mukesh Sahani threatened to walk out of the alliance on seat sharing issue. Efforts are on to persuade him to agree.
BJP leaders have begun their campaign with UP CM Yogi Adityanath addressing two rallies in Danapur and Saharsa in Bihar. Yogi asked voters to choose between ‘burqa’ and ‘vikas’.
Forging an alliance during elections is always the first challenge for any party, but the bigger challenge is to convince alliance partners to agree.
The third challenge is to persuade rebels to stay out of the contest. NDA has overcome all these three challenges and there is, of now, no quarrel in the alliance. Surveys and local feedbacks were used while selecting candidates, while caste equations were kept in mind.
Amit Shah, a master strategist, is leading the Bihar campaign from the front. The first round has gone in favour of NDA, but the fight has just begun.

Google AI hub : Chandrababu’s farsightedness

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Andhra Pradesh on Thursday was significant. He first offered prayers at the famous Srisailam temple and then launched schemes worth Rs 13,000 crores for Andhra Pradesh.
At a big rally in Kurnool, he praised chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu for his efforts to give a fillip to industries in AP.
The world’s biggest search engine Google has already announced plans to set up a global AI centre in Andhra Pradesh with an investment of $15 billion. This will be connected to other AI hubs across the world through undersea cables. The nodal point will be in Vishakhapatnam and it will provide jobs to several lakh people.
Modi said, Naidu’s government has decided to develop Kurnool as a drone manufacturing hub. The PM launched schemes worth Rs 13,000 crore on this occasion.
One must agree that Chandrababu Naidu thinks years ahead of others. He has this knack of changing with time.
I remember when Chandrababu became chief minister of undivided AP for the first time in 1995, India had just entered the computer age. People were not aware about internet, but Naidu, through sheer determination, developed Hyderabad as a cyber city from 1995 till 2004. He set up a modern IT business hub named Cyberabad in the state capital.
With the advent of AI age, Naidu has taken a big leap forward. He has allotted land at cheap rates to Google, provided all facilities and permissions. Some people are trying to oppose this, but I think, Chandrababu Naidu has done the right thing. He has taken a sound decision. Google will invest in Kurnool and India will emerge as a big AI hub in the coming years.

Special prisons for Mallya, Nirav Modi, Choksi

In a bid to extradite big economic fugitives like Vijay Mallya, Lalit Modi, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi to India, the government is planning to set up special penitentiaries, as per international norms in every state to keep these extradited persons.
Home Minister Amit Shah said, our agencies catch these fugitives in foreign countries, complete the process of extradition, but these fugitives, citing poor conditions of Indian prisons, manage to stall the process.
At a conference hosted by CBI in Delhi for extraditing fugitives, Shah said, extraditing fugitives from foreign shores is a complicated process and every state government must create special extradition cells and staff them with personnel who known international laws relating to extradition.
Shah said, a system should be developed wherein if Interpol issued a red corner notice, the person’s passport must stand automatically cancelled.
Presently, there are 388 petitions for extradition of Indian fugitives are pending in courts. Most of these fugitives cite poor conditions of Indian prisons and threat to life as the main reasons to stall extradition.
There is need to remove all shortcomings in jails. At least every state can build a special fugitive prison. Since Amit Shah has taken the initiative, we can only hope that it will soon become a reality.
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