Prime Minister Modi will continue to take the nation by surprise, catching his political opponents offguard, says Shreekant Sambrani.

'While Piyush Goel, Dharmendra Pradhan, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and a clutch of former bureaucrats including R K Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri and K J Alphons are loyal BJP members, none of them fit the mould of party apparatchiks.' 'In fact, many of the latter kind have been shown the door or have been given reduced charges.' 'That goes to show the prime minister's comfort level in dealing with professionals and administrators and the trust he reposes in them,' says Shreekant Sambrani.

India is free, certainly, and has been so for 70 years. But are Indians free-spirited? asks Shreekant Sambrani.

He played James Bond seven times. But the role Roger Moore most cherished was a different one.

Times without count we have bought more complex procedures in the name of simplification, says Shreekant Sambrani.

Whatever Mr Modi's other shortcomings be, his consistent efforts to motivate have created an aura of positivity, hopefully stable. He has also shown that he is not averse to taking decisions with possibly negative implications for him, says Shreekant Sambrani.

The government is doing things in agriculture that count for little, says Shreekant Sambrani.

'We need to put aside our anxieties about the Budget for now and possibly for long, and carry on as best as we can,' advises Shreekant Sambrani.

'Competence, experience, matter, did you say?' 'No music was sweeter than the mash of xenophobia, jingoism, racism, misogyny.' 'And the master busker to play the tune was round the corner to capture an eager audience just in the nick of time.' Shreekant Sambrani on the Trump Triumph a week after his upset victory.

'An America at war with itself, groaning under a mounting debt, with woolly-headed economic policies of a neophyte president who is more feared and suspected among the comity of nations does not augur well for the world.' 'It would be well justified in asking,' says Shreekant Sambrani, '"Is this how you expect to make America great again, Mr President?"'

'The American electorate are forced to choose between a shop-soiled spokesperson of crony establishmentarianism and an outlandish boor of a showman, who should never have been where he is now.'

Mr Modi must now work to win over the governor as a friend and learn to influence people credibly.

Trump is the first nominee of a major party in over a century to have no experience whatsoever of any political, administrative or military office.

The wars of the future will be fought over water and if they occur on large scale, will be far more devastating than any we have seen yet.

In spite of Budget's rural focus, the government has consistently stumbled in agriculture, says Shreekant Sambrani.

A 'soft' approach must be nurtured to complement the hard-line of spending billions in physical conflict; that is the only way to 'degrade and destroy' ISIS.

India must weave a quick-fix formula to ensure growth.

Gujarat was among the earliest civilisations in the sub-continent, dating back four millennia.

The greatest progress on civil rights in the United States since Abraham Lincoln was under the Southern Democrat Lyndon Johnson, the past master of wheeling and dealing in Congress.

'The finance minister and the government have met the immediate challenge. The wine this time is new and also in a new bottle, which, though not full, is less than half empty.'