That's all, Your Honour! : Nov.21-27

1. The 16th Asian Games have come to an end this week. India won a total of 14 Gold, 17 Silver and 33 Bronze medals. Most remarkable were gold wins in athletics and tennis. Somdev Devvraman won the Tennis Singles gold by defeating the top see Chinese player. A truly remarkable achievement was doubled when he also paired up with Samam Singh to win the Men's Doubles Gold too! Another athlete who won two golds was A.C.Ashwini who won 400m hurdles gold and later won the team 4x400m relay gold too. Sudha Singh won the 3000m steeplechase gold. 5 Indians went into the finals of the various boxing categories, with 2 of them winning gold. This is the first time, we have started to win so many medals in such a tough competition in sports which we never won. Though we came 6th in the medals tally, these wins have laid a very good foundation for future performances. And the best way to build on this foundation is to remove the red tape engulfing the sports system. Results will automatically follow!

2. At last, Rosaih was relieved of his duties as the Chief Minister of the Andhra Pradesh. Amidst dramatic developments, the Speaker Kiran Kumar Reddy was announced as the next Chief Minister of the state. Actually, this news was broken on twitter about a month ago by Rajagopalan, so for those of us who follow him, there was nothing surprising. However, in what was orchestrated perfectly for dramatic TV coverage, a CLP meeting was called, and all legislators were informed only late into the night. This set off speculation on whether this meet is to censure Jagan or to facilitate a change in the leadership. And in the afternoon, at 1:30pm, Rosaih appears before the media and announces his resignation. And then, while the High Command gleefully watched the coverage, TV media narrowed down the choices to 2 - Jaipal Reddy and Kiran Kumar Reddy. The CLP meeting, as usual authorised Sonia Gandhi to appoint a new leader. And she graciously appointed Kiran Kumar Reddy as the CLP leader and thereby the Chief Minister. Rosaih's tough stint ended thus. He took over at a turbulent time, and all that followed was even more turbulence. With Jagan breathing down his neck, and with Telangana issue ready to come back in December, surely it was too much to ask a person like Rosaih to lead the state. He is too fragile to live upto the demands of the post. Let's wait and see how Kiran Kumar Reddy will perform, and in the meanwhile, let's wish him good luck too!

3. In what can be termed as the victory of the year, the JD(U) - BJP combine has won a whopping 206 seats out of 243 in the Bihar Assembly elections. Fighting the election exclusively on development plank, the alliance trounced all other parties. So much so that there is no "official" opposition party in the state. For a party to get that status, it needs to win a minimum of 10% of seats. The RJD won 22 seats only. Congress performance was worse than last time - winning only 6 seats this time. BJP won a whopping 91 out of the 102 seats it contested. This victory is widely seen as Development winning over Caste politics, though it is too early to say caste was entirely out of picture. However, that development and development alone helped in such a massive victory gives us hope that one day development will also trounce the appeasement policies too. Here's hoping that that day comes soon :).

4. Phew! The "nataka" in Karnataka is getting very boring! After last week revelations that Yeddyurappa's relatives were sold land at throwaway prices, all expected that he will go. Even the BJP central command asked him to resign. Then he goes to Delhi, talks to the leadership, apprises them about the dangers of having him go (that the party will lose the Lingayat vote, that he has sizeable number of MLA's supporting him etc etc). Finally, the central leadership decides that he will stay as CM atleast till the local body elections are over in the state. These are due in Dec-Jan timeframe. Maybe, based on those results, a decision will be taken. Needless to say, these constant flip-flops are costing the party very dearly. It is high time the party takes a stand and sticks to it, and not ruin its well earned victory here.

5. And finally, your honour, Rahul Gandhi is back with a bang! In an interaction with students from Gujarat - he compared Narendra Modi to Mao. That's all, Your Honour!