Tired of the escalating infighting in the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) over the leadership issue, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has decided to take the matter of deciding the next Leader of Opposition (LOP) into its own hands.

According to sources, the Sangh has formed a committee under the leadership of its senior leader Madan Das Devi to select L K Advani’s successor. Other RSS leaders who are in the committee include Shrikant Joshi, Madhubhai, Suresh Soni, and Indresh Kumar.

The world, including India, maybe facing a severe economic crisis but it seems that the Indian political parties are immune to the global economic slowdown. According to a recently released survey of Centre for Media Studies, around Rs 10,000 crores (USD 2 billion) will be spent on Lok Sabha Polls 2009. This does not include the cost of conducting assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.

What is surprising here is that the amount to be spent (USD 2 billion) is more than what US President Barack Obama and other presidential candidates spent on their campaigns.

There are different views on the Indian policy towards China and the Tibet issue. I will write more on that some other day. I have reproduced here the letter written by then Deputy Prime Minister of India Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on November 7, 1950 on Tibet issue.

The letter throws light on the thought process of the Indian government vis-a-vis Tibet and China in the initial years after the independence.

On Sept. 15, Treasury Secretary Paulson and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Shalom Bernanke testified before Congress that on the previous Thursday, Sept. 11, an “electronic run” on the U.S. banking system took place between the hours of 9 and 11 am. . . . That had stop-gaps not been executed, by 2 p.m. (again, on Sept. 11) the hemorrhaging of “$5.5 trillion” would have taken place, resulting in the collapse of not only “the entire economy” of the United States but as well of the world within just “24 hours”.