To come to a conclusion on what the Congress’ role should be in the Parliament, Rahul Gandhi has separate teams of Congress leaders for both Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. And he takes advice from them on how to further strategise for the Parliament. While the core team for Lok Sabha includes Mallikarjun Kharge, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Venu Gopal, and Shashi Tharoor, the Rajya Sabha team has Anand Sharma, Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Jairam Ramesh, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, and Rajeev Shukla. The entire strategy is planned and carved out in Sonia Gandhi’s room no. 25 in the Lok Sabha, which has been allotted to her. For instance, it was Scindia’s idea to come to the Parliament with black bands, and to sit for a demonstration in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in the Parliament area – Rahul really liked both of them.

There is likelihood that the Parliament’s monsoon session will get washed away. This especially after Prime Minister Modi announcing it to the opposition that the government is ready to have a face-off with the opposition; the opposition arched their brows a little more after that. The monsoon session has been on since July 13, but the Parliament has seen no sign of any work even after a week has passed by. The BJP’s crisis management group is active, and the government wants at least a working relationship be established with the Congress, the major Opposition party. This was the reason the prime minister himself went up to Sonia Gandhi to greet her during the session, but he didn’t get a very positive message. Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Venkaiah Naidu tried to call up Rahul Gandhi’s resident at Tughlaq Lane a number of times, but Rahul didn’t come on the line. PMO’s attempts to get in touch with 10, Janpath, came to nothing, too. The government wants to introduce seven new bills in the Parliament and wants to pass 10 that are pending already. Due to the daily tamasha by the opposition, several ambitious bills by the government, such as the Real Estate Bill 2013 (which is with a select committee for now), Whistleblower’s Protection Bill 2015, Juvenile Justice (Amendment) Bill. Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill 2013, the Electricity Amendment Bill 2014, Child Labour Bill, Mental Health Care Bill 2013, are all hanging in torpor.

Before the start of the Parliament session, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj allegedly spoke to her old friend Ambica Soni and presented her side of the story. Soni spoke to Rahul Gandhi during the party meeting and said they should be a tad soft on the Sushma matter, because as a leader of the Opposition, she had supported the Congress on many issues; apart from Ambica Soni, Ghulam Nabi Azad was also of the same opinion. But Rahul’s attitude was different; he told his senior leaders straightaway that they were there to do politics, not friendships. He said it was this attitude of the party people that has brought the Congress tally down to 44.

Gautam Adani, who was in Europe for a road trip with his younger son for the past 15 days, is back in the country. He made a big decision right after coming back – that to sell off half of his ownership (49 per cent) in the coal project in Australia. It is the same project for which a big controversy had erupted regarding his association with the State Bank of India and a hurried loan. Sensing Adani’s close association with the Indian prime minister, the Australian prime minister, too, was in constant touch with the industrialist – it only took one phone call to reach out to the other. On the other hand, Adani now wants to concentrate more and more on his businesses in India; his goal is to become the country’s biggest port operator. At the same time, he wants to expand his power projects and wants to become a big power generator. Seeing his association with a big power house, this doesn’t look like a difficult goal at all.

Since July 14, a lot of change can be seen in the BJP and Narendra Modi’s celestial stars. Let’s talk about the BJP first. Since July 14, Jupiter has entered the Leo sign, which will weaken the former. Which means the BJP might find the road ahead a tough one. It will also have to really slog it out in the coming elections. Taking about prime minister’s horoscope, Jupiter has entered the 10th house since July 14. This is worrying, since it indicated Modi will have to work extra hard. There are also indications that he will not get rewards that are commiserate with his hard work. This is a claim that has been made by Indian astrologer S Chanda, alias Mahesh Chandra Tyagi. Tyagi also claims that on April 7, 2016, when the Hindu calendar (Vikram Samvat) will change, the politics of many countries, including that of India will see significant changes. From March 21, 2015, to April 7, 2016, Saturn will be playing the role of king, and Mars will be in the queen’s position, and will be the cause of a lot of political upheavals. According to S Chand, when the BJP achieved unprecedented success in the 2014 General Elections, Jupiter was in the second house of Cancer sign for the BJP, and it was the Mithun lagna. It was an excellent time for the party. November 2, 2014 onwards, when Saturn entered the Taurus sign, the BJP’s ashtam bhav was being eyed by both Jupiter and Saturn. That is why the BJP is going through such trying times at present.

Repeating the rhetoric of “Ma, maati, maanush (mother, land, and human), Mamata Banerjee also seems to be addicted to go around visiting foreign countries with huge delegations, all in the name of scouting for foreign investments. After her much-talked-about Singapore tour, Didi has gone to London with her delegation, from July 26-30. Mamata has named his trip of hers “Mission London”. The main people in this trip are ITC Group’s Y V Deveshwar, and Apeejay Group’s Karan Paul. A delegation of 50 industrialists is a part of Mamata’s entourage, along with 11 members of the arts and culture segment. At a meeting between UK India Business Council and FICCI, Mamata will also meet Prince Andrew and will try to convince him how it will be his country’s benefit to invest in West Bengal.

A few days ago, Doon School alumnus and former Central Minister from the Congress R P N Singh held a party for his school mates in London. Nearly 125 alumna were sent invitations for the same, and incidentally, Vasundhara Raje’s Parliamentarian son Dushyant Singh also happened to be in London at that time. It is to be remembered that he, too, is from Doon School. Most of R P N Singh’s school friends were worried if he had invited Dushyant Singh for the party or not, for this would have only become media fodder. Dushyant did come to the party and was there for a long time, but a number of people who were to attend the party backed out; only 30-35 people made it to the party.

A few days ago, the defense ministry conducted a survey regarding its recruitment policy. The results were shocking. Until a few years ago, Punjab had been on the top in army recruitments. Recently, however, it has slipped to number eight, with states such as Bihar and UP doing better than Punjab. When the army officials tried to find a reason for this, they were shocked to know that an entire generation of youth in Punjab is falling prey to addiction and substance abuse. India’s neighbour Pakistan is allegedly assisting this trend. Pakistan’s neighbour Afghanistan harvests opium in a considerable amount. The poppy pods are called dode, whose seeds when split, secrete a sort of milk, which is dried and sent to Pakistan for processing. A salt called al hydrate is needed to extract heroin out of this powder. Incidentally, this powder is manufactured in India, which is exported to Pakistan. According to the NCB report by the United Nations, 100 tonnes of heroin is manufactured in Pakistan annually, of which 30 tonnes makes its way into India illegally. The rest goes to countries such as Korea and Japan via China, some reaches Russia and its adjoining countries. Sources say that the cost of heroin in Pakistan is about Rs 5 lakh a kilo; but once it crosses into the Indian border, its cost increases to Rs 1 crore a kilo. Playing such cunning games, Pakistan is doing all it can to ruin an entire generation in Punjab.

Ever since Modi government has taken over at the Centre, it has started a trend of new traditions. At a time when India is getting more and more entangled in border controversies with its neighbours, a meeting of the Crisis Management Committee was summoned by the prime minister to resolve the matter. Usually such meetings take place in South Block, but this meeting called a few days ago took place in North Block. The meeting was presided over by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, and saw the presence of the National Security Advisor, BSF head, Defense Secretary and Foreign Secretary. The entire meeting saw the influence of Ajit Doval, who was giving his voice to the PMO’s tunes. The duty of briefing the media after the meeting got over was handed over to Modi’s favourite and Defense Secretary S Jaishankar. That is, Modi government is set to come up with something new in terms of reciting and writing a new story.

With Punjab seeing Assembly elections in the coming year, most prominent political parties are trying with all their might to be seen and heard. Keeping the dates in mind, the Aam Aadmi Party’s Punjab unit is a ball of energy, and while the Congress leadership is working actively in the state, the culture of camps in state Congress is just not coming to an end. Rahul Gandhi can’t stand Captain Amrinder Singh, Punjab Congress’ most influential leader. But to ignore the man at a time like this would mean calling for a revolt in the party’s state unit. Thus, Sonia Gandhi is looking for a middle way, and she had a talk with Captain after calling him to Delhi. She told him if he didn’t like Bajwa as the state’s party president, he should nominate a name of his own liking for the post. Sources say the Captain has nominated the name of Leader of Opposition Sunil Jakhar for the post, but the party people can’t seem to come to a unanimous decision about him. Most Congress leaders are of the opinion that Jakhar’s name was more appropriate for the politics of Haryana, but the Jakhar family’s contribution hasn’t been all that much in Punjab’s politics. Thus, now Captain has been told to come up with some other name.