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A former finance minister in the Jyoti Basu-led Left Front government, a former member of the Rajya Sabha, a former chairman of Parliament's standing committee on industry and commerce, a member of the quartet that created the prestigious Economic & Political Weekly, a distinguished economist, an avid cricket fan, a gentleman with a way with words -- and above all, a committed and cerebral Leftist. Ashok Mitra needs no introduction to the readership of rediff.com, for he has been a columnist. Jyoti Malhotra met him in his home on Alipore Park Road, in his study lined with books by Marx and Engels that have kept him company in the good days and the bad days. In the good days, he was in the forefront of the movement, the toast of town and Calcutta was a Left paradise which, as he wrote inSeminar in 2006, 'taught the (city) the language of protest.' Today's Kolkata has changed beyond recognition, and in the run up to the May 13 poll is suffused with an anti-CPI-M mood

A lion was getting married.... at his wedding was a mouse shouting away...& congratulating the lion " all the best my brother.... good luck.....".Seeing the mouse shouting away claiming that the lion getting married is his brother... another Lion grabs the mouse in anger & asks "Who the hell do you think you are.... how can a lion be your brother.. you are only a mouse...." The Mouse replies.... "I was also a Lion before I got married.

By Sam Nagarajan and Patricia Lui May 13 (Bloomberg) -- India’s government needs to follow through on pledges to bring back cash stashed overseas to help fund an $85 billion economic stimulus plan and bolster markets, Credit Suisse Group AG and Credit Agricole SA say. “India has to claw back every cent it can get,” Joseph Tan, chief economist for Asia in Singapore at Credit Suisse, the second-biggest Swiss bank, said in an interview. The prospect of “revenue is the impetus for this crackdown on tax evasion and tax havens,” he said. The government led by the Indian National Congress already has taken action to try to bring illegal funds held abroad back to the country, Jayanthi Natarajan, the party’s spokeswoman in New Delhi, said in an interview on May 6. The Congress party-led coalition may have won the most seats without securing enough votes to form a government, initial exit polls showed after national elections ended today. The Global Financial Integrity program, a Washington-base