By Krishna Eluri

BENGALURU (REUTERS)Indian inflation is expected to have cooled to a 14-month low in November after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise removal of high denomination bank notes caused an intense cash shortage and severely hurt consumption, a Reuters poll found.

Modi's announcement on November 8 that he was withdrawing 500 and 1,000 rupee bank notes in an attempt to curb corruption and tax evasion made it much harder for consumers to make purchases in the predominantly cash-based economy.

Consumer spending makes up 55 percent of India's economy and most people buy and get paid in cash. The virtual overnight removal of 86 percent of the currency in circulation has left companies, farmers and households suffering.

Inflation is expected to ease to 3.90 percent in November from a year earlier, according to the median consensus from the Reuters poll of over 20 economists.

That would compare with October's 4.20 percent and the Reserve Bank of India's target of 4 percent to be reached by 2021.

"Overall, I think there is a 10- to 20-basis point impact on inflation due to demonetization. We have downgraded our forecast to the same degree," said Tushar Arora, senior economist at HDFC Bank.

Indian services activity dived into contraction last month due to a sharp decline in demand following the withdrawal of the high denomination bank notes, with factory activity showing a sharp deceleration as well.

Despite the turmoil following the cash clampdown, India's central bank surprised markets by eschewing a rate cut and leaving its key policy rate unchanged at 6.25 percent this week, choosing to wait for more information before judging the full effects of the demonetization.

Before last month's announcement, the recently formed Monetary Policy Committee chaired by RBI Governor Urjit Patel was expected to cut interest rates in early 2017.

With the central bank passing up the opportunity to make a rate cut in December, despite cooling inflation, a February move could be on the menu.

Wholesale price inflation likely cooled to 3.10 percent in November from 3.39 percent in October, the poll found.

(Polling by Shaloo Shrivastava and Khushboo Mittal; Editing by Kim Coghill)

he Supreme Court delivered two Judgements in quick succession. The first Judgement dealt with the question of debarring the candidates who were in police custody from a right to vote and consequently the right to contest. All political parties including the BJP felt that this Judgement if allowed to stand could be destructive of the democratic process. ‘Law and order’ is a State subject and all the State police has to do is to arrest a few candidates on the eve of filing of nomination papers and subvert the electoral process. The law amending section 62(5) of the Representation of Peoples Act has already been passed.

The second of the two Judgements dealt with a more serious issue. Should a person convicted of a criminal offence which entails disqualification of the membership of the Legislature be allowed to continue as a member till his appeal against the conviction is disposed of? The Supreme Court struck down section 8(4) of the Representation of Peoples Act as being violative of the constitutional provisions contained in Article 102 and Article 191 of the Constitution.

On August 13, 2013, the Government convened an All Party meeting in the Parliament House. Mrs. Sushma Swaraj and I attended that meeting. In the meeting we were told that the Government wanted to discuss a series of issues including the Judgement of the Supreme Court in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences case, the disqualification of membership of a convicted legislator under section 8(4), The Judicial Appointment Commission legislation, the Judgement of the Supreme Court depriving the right of a jailed person from voting or contesting and measures to be taken for the smooth functioning of both houses of Parliament.

On the issue of a convicted legislator’s right to continue his present membership, various proposals were discussed. At the end of the discussion the impression conveyed to us was that the Government would finalise the proposal and refer the matter to a Standing Committee for formulation of opinion. The Government has tried to convey an impression that the BJP was in full support of the legislation which was proposed. In fact, only various options were discussed. I am constrained to set the record straight on account of his disinformation being spread by the Government

After this meeting, on 15th August, 2013 I was told by the Union Law Minister at the conclusion of the Prime Minister’s speech at the Red Fort on Independence Day, that the Government was contemplating a Constitution amendment. This was conveyed to me in the presence of the union Finance Minister. I expressed my apprehensions at the proposal. My apprehensions were that public opinion would disapprove the fact that Parliament was amending the Constitution in order to enable convicted persons to continue as a law maker. In any case there are no more than a handful of people who fall in this category. We can easily live with this Judgement and it was not necessary to amend the Constitution to overrule this Judgement. The Law Minister informed me that he would now start examining if amendment to the law was possible rather than a Constitution amendment.

After a few days the Government conveyed to us that they were contemplating an amendment in section 8(4) of the Representation of Peoples Act. I had examined this matter and consulted various informed persons including several legal experts. My own understanding upon reading of section 8(4) which was being proposed was that such a provision would suffer from the vice of the unconstitutionality which the original section 8(4) suffers. I had conveyed this myself to the Law Minister.

On Tuesday, the 2nd September, 2013 when the General Body of the BJP Parliamentary Party met, I explained this to my colleagues why this amendment was unconstitutional. I further stated that this was morally unacceptable to a large section of public opinion which found the very idea of enabling convicted persons to continue as law makers as objectionable. The fact that I had raised an objection against this amendment and also the amendment in relation to the non-applicability of the RTI to political parties was widely reported in the media. On the same day the Union Law Minister came to the chamber of Mrs. Sushma Swaraj in the Parliament. On receiving the message I also reached her room. There was at least half an hour discussion/argument between the three of us as to why this amendment to Peoples Representation Act should not be approved.

We felt that it was morally questionable and constitutionally invalid. The Parliament was originally expected to adjourn sine die on 6/9/2013. The sitting of the Parliament was extended by one day to enable the passage of certain Bills including this amendment. Mrs. Sushma Swaraj and I categorically informed the Government that we were opposed to the passage of this amendment. In view of a divided opinion the Government informed us that this was being referred to a Standing Committee.

We were shocked when the Ordinance was issued even though a Bill was pending consideration before the Standing Committee. We opposed the issuance of the Ordinance on several grounds.

There has been a series of discussions in relation to this Bill. The BJP had opposed it all along and conveyed its opposition to the Government. The above is a record of some of those conversations.

I am making the above facts known publicly since a campaign of disinformation has been launched by a beleaguered Government.

Kathmandu (Nepal) : Third Bloggers Conference was inaugurated by the Senior leader of Nepali congress party and Ex- cabinet mister of nepal Mr. Arjun Narsingha KC with Lekhnath Sahitya Sadan started at 1:30 p.m that concluded at 5:00 p.m. Hindi, English,Nepali,Bhojpuri,Awadhi, Chatisgarhi, maithili Bloggers and literary persons of India & Nepal participated in the Kathmandu. Parallell online contribution was made by the other participants.

This three days celebration session was chaired by Mr. Kumud Adhikari, Suman Pokhrel, Uma suvedi, Sanat Regmi, Vikram mani Tripathi, Ravindra Prabhat, Dr. Rama Dwivedi, Dr. Sampatdevi Muraraka, K.K. Yadav, Akanksha Yadav, Girish Pankaj, Lalit Sharma, B.S. Pawala, Dr Ram Bahadur Mishra, Shailesh Bharatvasi, Mukesh Kumar Sinha, Mukesh Tiwari, Manoj Bhavuk, Saroj Suman, Vinay Prajapati, Sunita Prem Yadav etc. reknowned Nepali, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Maithili,  Chattisgarhi writer and folklore scholar.

Addressing in the program Mr. Arjun Narsingha KC said that "India and Nepal are just like the two streams of the river. The culture of both the countries are linked togather. This is a matter of pride that both the countries are having a culturel years. I am very happy that in the leadership of Mr. Ravindra prabhat this conferance was held in our country, In this way our views will be shared by both the countries."

Ravindra Prabhat, a Senior Indian Blogger and Chief Editor "Parikalpna Samay" said that if a Bloggers dies without transforming his/her knowledge to the new generation, the knowledge is meaningless. He related this with a saying “If an example if a witch could not transform her knowledge to anybody, she makes a hole where she dies.”

Many other projects in various Hindi and Nepali languages like Maithili, Bhojpuri,Awadhi and Chhattisgarhi are coming out from incubation. “These upcoming "Parikalpna Award" can tie the knot of South asian integrity.” Prabhat added.

Pioneer of Nepali Author and Secretary of Nepal pragya pratishthan  Sanat Regmi led the "Sarv Bhasha Kavi Sammelan" of the “Glorious 3rd International Bloggers Conference.”

Mr. Girish Pankaj explains, “This celebration is to mark the extraordinary effort of our Bloggers community members and invite new guys to join in.  We conduct small sessions to teach how to contribute to articles on Blogs.”

So, what do these Bloggers do? They run Blogproducts online to improve content on literature & culture, costumes, mountains and geography. Some even work on physics, chemistry and medicine related articles just for the love of the language and to make sure that  people can get more and more information in their own mother tongue.

Blogger K.K. Yadav from the Indian Postal Department  attending the event has encourage the Indo-Nepali Bloggers to take up new projects and suggest ways of increasing the community strength.

B.S. Pawala, another Senior technical Blogger adds, “Although Blog is widely used by students across the globe, not many know that this information is contributed by common people, young and old from all walks of life! In Indo-Nepali People, the awareness and the number of contributors really needs to be improved.”

Report : Nazia Rizavi