India's Congress-Led Coalition Seen With Strong Early Lead

The biggest story in India these days continues to be the May 2014 elections and what they could mean for India's economy which is growing at its slowest pace in a decade. Naturally analysts have been weighing in on the elections.

India is in desperate need of reforms.

India's government said the economy will likely register its slowest annual growth in a decade and expand just 5.0 percent in the fiscal year ending in March, citing official estimates released Thursday.

The Palestinian president will invite Israeli politicians to the West Bank to try to make sure peacemaking is on the new government’s agenda, a senior official said Thursday, even as a top Israeli hard-liner proposed sidelining the polarizing issue.

Following my April 23 political prediction Merkel Loses Chancellorship in September as Support for AfD Soars, I received many emails from readers suggesting I was engaged in wishful thinking, German polls are unreliable, that I was following the wrong polls, etc. I am sticking with what I said. I simply do not see how any sort of stable coalition can form either with or without Merkel.

India's public-sector banks and many government offices were shut Thursday on the second day of a general strike called to protest against the government's planned pro-market reforms. Eleven unions called the strike in protest at the measures which they condemn as "anti-poor" and likely to cost jobs and raise prices.