A country of 1.3 billion people just blindly follows Politics, Cricket and Bollywood. Just watch any TV channel for an hour; the content will have political news, prominent leader speech, and commercials with cricketers or film stars. The amazing transformation was pushed by the advent of television in the 1990’s and it became bigger and bigger with huge money-chasing politics, cricket and Bollywood. Narendra Modi, Virat, Sachin, and Shahrukh Khan, are household names in any part of the country courtesy TV, Radio, Newspaper and social media. The personality cult surrounding superstars is a phenomenal story for the people following them, the pressures to keep up with the demands of over a billion people are huge too. Leadership can transform a country, so the team of eleven men can be motivated by aggressive competent leadership. Virat Kohli is an outstanding sportsman and a huge influence on the Indian cricket team. The Indian Men’s Cricket Team in recent times seems to possess a Midas touch. It appears that everything that team under Virat’s command touches turns into gold. With the recent conclusion of the One Day Internationals (ODIs) series against Australia, India has finished on the top of the Cricket Ratings in both the Test Matches as well as ODIs. The phenomenal success of the team has been attributed to many/several factors, one such being the smooth transition of the captaincy in the hands of Virat Kohli’s hands. In test cricket, India has quite successfully clinched the last eight test match series in a row. it is just one short to equal the record of Australia, nine consecutive victories on a roll. The formidable form of the team must be decoded in detail and also the roles of young players especially Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah are pivotal to achieving the desired goals on a consistent basis.

On the economic front, Demonetization and GST have become the main political agenda of the present political scene. But the principal agenda that needs immediate focus is the NPA of the banks in India. There’s no doubt that the UPA left poison pills behind, but the Government must get tough. The Indian banking sector is in crisis and someone needs to call out the culprit, the UPA Government, which allowed ridiculous loans to be approved. If facts are investigated, it will emerge that several gold-plated loans were given to favored businessmen. It is, therefore, not surprising that journalists, friendly to the previous regime, are flying kites and are trying to discredit legitimate business loans given to people close to the current administration. When Congress leaders attack the Modi Government for allowing defaulters such as Vijay Mallya to ‘escape’, one cannot but be astounded at the hypocrisy of such spokespersons. It was the UPA that gave massive loans which did not have a semblance of logic. Anybody with a modicum of intelligence could see that Mallya’s airline was in a tailspin and was going to be crushed under the one-time liquor baron’s immense ego. The problem is beyond Mallya and it has reached many known corporate houses where the number of toxic loans is higher than the Mallya golden benchmark bad loans. Surely Gujarat and HP state elections are important for both the national parties but the main reason why the Indian economy is bleeding is never addressed by political elites, the reason is simple – industrialists who have taken loans are close to both the parties so the debate is conveniently transferred to GST and demonetization. A healthy economy can ride on a healthy banking system but the state of banking in India is pathetic. NPA has broken the backbone of banks in India; it is high time that policymakers must get serious about the most serious issue that has paralyzed the Indian economy.

 —Prashant Tewari, Editor-in-Chief

A country of 1.3 billion people just blindly follows Politics, Cricket and Bollywood. Just watch any TV channel for an hour; the content will have political news, prominent leader speech, and commercials with cricketers or film stars. The amazing transformation was pushed by the advent of television in the 1990’s and it became bigger and bigger with huge money-chasing politics, cricket and Bollywood. Narendra Modi, Virat, Sachin, and Shahrukh Khan, are household names in any part of the country courtesy TV, Radio, Newspaper and social media. The personality cult surrounding superstars is a phenomenal story for the people following them, the pressures to keep up with the demands of over a billion people are huge too. Leadership can transform a country, so the team of eleven men can be motivated by aggressive competent leadership. Virat Kohli is an outstanding sportsman and a huge influence on the Indian cricket team. The Indian Men’s Cricket Team in recent times seems to possess a Midas touch. It appears that everything that team under Virat’s command touches turns into gold. With the recent conclusion of the One Day Internationals (ODIs) series against Australia, India has finished on the top of the Cricket Ratings in both the Test Matches as well as ODIs. The phenomenal success of the team has been attributed to many/several factors, one such being the smooth transition of the captaincy in the hands of Virat Kohli’s hands. In test cricket, India has quite successfully clinched the last eight test match series in a row. it is just one short to equal the record of Australia, nine consecutive victories on a roll. The formidable form of the team must be decoded in detail and also the roles of young players especially Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah are pivotal to achieving the desired goals on a consistent basis.

On the economic front, Demonetization and GST have become the main political agenda of the present political scene. But the principal agenda that needs immediate focus is the NPA of the banks in India. There’s no doubt that the UPA left poison pills behind, but the Government must get tough. The Indian banking sector is in crisis and someone needs to call out the culprit, the UPA Government, which allowed ridiculous loans to be approved. If facts are investigated, it will emerge that several gold-plated loans were given to favored businessmen. It is, therefore, not surprising that journalists, friendly to the previous regime, are flying kites and are trying to discredit legitimate business loans given to people close to the current administration. When Congress leaders attack the Modi Government for allowing defaulters such as Vijay Mallya to ‘escape’, one cannot but be astounded at the hypocrisy of such spokespersons. It was the UPA that gave massive loans which did not have a semblance of logic. Anybody with a modicum of intelligence could see that Mallya’s airline was in a tailspin and was going to be crushed under the one-time liquor baron’s immense ego. The problem is beyond Mallya and it has reached many known corporate houses where the number of toxic loans is higher than the Mallya golden benchmark bad loans. Surely Gujarat and HP state elections are important for both the national parties but the main reason why the Indian economy is bleeding is never addressed by political elites, the reason is simple – industrialists who have taken loans are close to both the parties so the debate is conveniently transferred to GST and demonetization. A healthy economy can ride on a healthy banking system but the state of banking in India is pathetic. NPA has broken the backbone of banks in India; it is high time that policymakers must get serious about the most serious issue that has paralyzed the Indian economy.

 —Prashant Tewari, Editor-in-Chief