Periscope: A handful session, leading to Davos, and run-up to bypoll

A busy session
 
The Budget session of the Kerala legislative Assembly will start on Monday. Finance Minister Thomas Issac will present a full budget in the House on February 2. The session will discuss both revenue and expenditure for the financial year. The Cabinet’s decision to set up a welfare board for providing pensions and other benefits to teachers of Madrasa schools and a Kerala Metropolitan Transport Authority Bill, aiming to improve transportation facilities by coordinating and implementing various development projects in urban areas, are likely to be discussed and passed.
 
Run-up to bypoll
 

Campaigning is on in full swing for byelections in West Bengal and Rajasthan. Two parliamentary constituencies in Rajasthan (Alwar and Ajmer) and  one in West Bengal (Uluberia); and two Assembly constituencies in the two states (Noapara in West Bengal and Mandalgarh in Rajasthan) will go to polls on  January 29. The results will be out on February 3. Both states are important from the point of view of the Bharatiya Janata Party — in Rajasthan it is in power, while in West Bengal it is to establish a presence.

 
Leading to Davos
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday will take a  delegation to the Swiss ski resort of Davos to attend and address the World Economic Forum meet, an annual gathering of global leaders that takes up recent issues of economy, geopolitics and political stalemate for discussion. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be part of the large entourage. The PM will address a special plenary, ‘Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World’, the theme of the WEF’s 48th four-day annual summit ending on Friday. Modi’s speech might highlight India jumping 30 ranks in the World Bank’s ‘ease of doing business’ index from 130th to 100th rank. He will be the second Indian PM in 20 years to attend the WEF event. Former prime minister H D Devegowda  attended in 1997.