KOLKATA, India (Reuters) – Kolkata’s red-brick secretariat was built more than 200 years ago for Britain’s East India Company, which used trade in opium, cloth and tea to colonize the subcontinent. Distrust of foreign merchants lingers still.

For the past year, the sprawling building has been occupied by Mamata Banerjee, the diminutive chief minister of West Bengal state who is perhaps the largest obstacle to economic reforms that would allow 21st-century traders free access to India’s consumer markets.

To supporters who affectionately call her “Didi”, or “Big Sister”, Banerjee is a hero who ended more than three decades of communist rule in West Bengal. They say she shelters farmers and shopkeepers from the harsh winds of globalization, while guiding West Bengal towards its rightful place as an economic and cultural powerhouse and India’s gateway to Southeast Asia.

But after a series of erratic moves, including the arrest of an academic who forwarded a joke email about her to his friends, critics see her as an autocrat in the making. Weekly magazine India Today branded her the “Queen of Democrazy”.

Banerjee’s widely ridiculed antics and disappointment with her administration in West Bengal could hasten the end of her honeymoon with the voters.

She is also dependent on the central government to bail West Bengal out of a debt crisis. Together, those factors offer Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a chance to out-maneuver someone who, despite being a coalition ally, has stood doggedly in the way of much-needed economic reform.

In the past year, India’s stellar economic growth has slowed and its current account and budget deficits have ballooned. But the central government’s attempts to introduce policies it says would remedy the crisis have been blocked by the very coalition allies it relies on for survival, chief among them Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress party.

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) – Kolkata’s red-brick secretariat was built more than 200 years ago for Britain’s East India Company, which used trade in opium, cloth and tea to colonise the subcontinent. Distrust of foreign merchants lingers still.

For the past year, the sprawling building has been occupied by Mamata Banerjee, the diminutive chief minister of West Bengal who is perhaps the largest obstacle to economic reforms that would allow 21st-century traders free access to India’s consumer markets.

To supporters who affectionately call her “Didi”, or “Big Sister”, Banerjee is a hero who ended more than three decades of communist rule in West Bengal. They say she shelters farmers and shopkeepers from the harsh winds of globalisation, while guiding West Bengal towards its rightful place as an economic and cultural powerhouse and India’s gateway to Southeast Asia.

But after a series of erratic moves, including the arrest of an academic who forwarded a joke email about her to his friends, critics see her as an autocrat in the making. Weekly magazine India Today branded her the “Queen of Democrazy”.

Banerjee’s widely ridiculed antics and disappointment with her administration in West Bengal could hasten the end of her honeymoon with the voters.

She is also dependent on the central government to bail West Bengal out of a debt crisis. Together, those factors offer Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a chance to out-manoeuvre someone who, despite being a coalition ally, has stood doggedly in the way of much-needed economic reform.

In the past year, India’s stellar economic growth has slowed and its current account and budget deficits have ballooned. But the central government’s attempts to introduce policies it says would remedy the crisis have been blocked by the very coalition allies it relies on for survival, chief among them Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress party.

KOLKATA, India, May 13 (Reuters) – Kolkata’s red-brick secretariat was built more than 200 years ago for Britain’s East India Company, which used trade in opium, cloth and tea to colonise the subcontinent. Distrust of foreign merchants lingers still.

For the past year, the sprawling building has been occupied by Mamata Banerjee, the diminutive chief minister of West Bengal state who is perhaps the largest obstacle to economic reforms that would allow 21st-century traders free access to India’s consumer markets.

To supporters who affectionately call her “Didi”, or “Big Sister”, Banerjee is a hero who ended more than three decades of communist rule in West Bengal. They say she shelters farmers and shopkeepers from the harsh winds of globalisation, while guiding West Bengal towards its rightful place as an economic and cultural powerhouse and India’s gateway to Southeast Asia.

But after a series of erratic moves, including the arrest of an academic who forwarded a joke email about her to his friends, critics see her as an autocrat in the making. Weekly magazine India Today branded her the “Queen of Democrazy”.

Banerjee’s widely ridiculed antics and disappointment with her administration in West Bengal could hasten the end of her honeymoon with the voters.

She is also dependent on the central government to bail West Bengal out of a debt crisis. Together, those factors offer Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a chance to out-manoeuvre someone who, despite being a coalition ally, has stood doggedly in the way of much-needed economic reform.

In the past year, India’s stellar economic growth has slowed and its current account and budget deficits have ballooned. But the central government’s attempts to introduce policies it says would remedy the crisis have been blocked by the very coalition allies it relies on for survival, chief among them Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress party.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari will sit down to lunch with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on Sunday in the highest-level meeting on each other’s soil in seven years as the nuclear-armed foes seek to normalize relations.

Relations have warmed since Pakistan promised its neighbor most favored nation trade status in 2011, although a $10 million bounty offered by Washington for a Pakistani Islamist blamed for the 2008 attacks on Mumbai stirred old grievances.

At the lunch meeting the two leaders are expected to focus on trade, where progress has been made, leaving more intractable problems, such as Kashmir, to lower officials.

“The Prime Minister will talk only about issues related to trade, education and culture this time,” a government source with knowledge of the itinerary told Reuters.

On Saturday, an avalanche buried 124 Pakistani soldiers and 11 civilians near the 6,000-metre Siachen glacier in Kashmir, known as the world’s highest battlefield. India and Pakistan fought two wars over Siachen and hundreds have died there, mostly from the inhospitable conditions.

India has yet to comment on the disaster.

The continued freedom of Islamist Hafiz Saeed, suspected of masterminding an attack by Pakistan-based gunmen on India’s financial capital, Mumbai, in 2008 that killed 166 people, could loom over the meeting.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The United States has posted a $10 million reward for help in the arrest of a Pakistani Islamist leader, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, suspected of masterminding attacks on India’s financial capital and its parliament.

The reward comes at a time of heightened tension between the United States and Pakistan and is likely to increases pressure on Pakistan to take action against the former Arabic scholar, who has recently addressed rallies in Pakistan despite an Interpol warrant for him.

Released from house arrest in 2009, Saeed is a free man in Pakistan.

India has long called for Saeed’s capture and said the bounty – one of the highest on offer – was a sign the United States understood its security concerns. Last week, Saeed evaded police to address an anti-U.S. rally in the Pakistani capital.

“India welcomes this new initiative of the government of the United States,” External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said on Tuesday of the bounty announced on the U.S. Rewards for Justice website.

“In recent years, India and the United States have moved much closer than ever before in our common endeavour of fighting terrorists.”

The United States only offers a $10 million reward for three other people it suspects of terrorism, with a single reward of up to $25 million for Egyptian-born Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. There was previously no U.S. bounty for Saeed.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The United States has posted a $10 million reward for help in the arrest of a Pakistani Islamist leader, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, suspected of masterminding attacks on India’s financial capital and its parliament.

The reward comes at a time of heightened tension between the United States and Pakistan and is likely to increases pressure on Pakistan to take action against the former Arabic scholar, who has recently addressed rallies in Pakistan despite an Interpol warrant for him.

Released from house arrest in 2009, Saeed is a free man in Pakistan.

India has long called for Saeed’s capture and said the bounty – one of the highest on offer – was a sign the United States understood its security concerns. Last week, Saeed evaded police to address an anti-U.S. rally in the Pakistani capital.

“India welcomes this new initiative of the government of the United States,” Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said on Tuesday of the bounty announced on the U.S. Rewards for Justice website.

“In recent years, India and the United States have moved much closer than ever before in our common endeavor of fighting terrorists.”

The United States only offers a $10 million reward for three other people it suspects of terrorism, with a single reward of up to $25 million for Egyptian-born Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. There was previously no U.S. bounty for Saeed.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The United States has posted a $10 million reward for help in the arrest of a Pakistani Islamist leader, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, suspected of masterminding attacks on Mumbai and the parliament building in New Delhi.

The reward comes at a time of heightened tension between the United States and Pakistan and is likely to increases pressure on Pakistan to take action against the former Arabic scholar, who has recently addressed rallies in Pakistan despite an Interpol warrant for him.

Released from house arrest in 2009, Saeed is a free man in Pakistan.

India has long called for Saeed’s capture and said the bounty – one of the highest on offer – was a sign the United States understood its security concerns. Last week, Saeed evaded police to address an anti-U.S. rally in the Pakistani capital.

“India welcomes this new initiative of the government of the United States,” External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said on Tuesday of the bounty announced on the U.S. Rewards for Justice website.

“In recent years, India and the United States have moved much closer than ever before in our common endeavour of fighting terrorists.”

The United States only offers a $10 million reward for three other people it suspects of terrorism, with a single reward of up to $25 million for Egyptian-born Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. There was previously no U.S. bounty for Saeed.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The United States has posted a $10 million reward for help in the arrest of a Pakistani Islamist leader, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, suspected of masterminding attacks on India’s financial capital and its parliament.

The reward comes at a time of heightened tension between the United States and Pakistan and is likely to increases pressure on Pakistan to take action against the former Arabic scholar, who has recently addressed rallies in Pakistan despite an Interpol warrant for him.

Released from house arrest in 2009, Saeed is a free man in Pakistan.

India has long called for Saeed’s capture and said the bounty – one of the highest on offer – was a sign the United States understood its security concerns. Last week, Saeed evaded police to address an anti-U.S. rally in the Pakistani capital.

“India welcomes this new initiative of the government of the United States,” Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said on Tuesday of the bounty announced on the U.S. Rewards for Justice website.

“In recent years, India and the United States have moved much closer than ever before in our common endeavor of fighting terrorists.”

The United States only offers a $10 million reward for three other people it suspects of terrorism, with a single reward of up to $25 million for Egyptian-born Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. There was previously no U.S. bounty for Saeed.

NEW DELHI, April 3 (Reuters) – The United States has posted a $10 million reward for help in the arrest of a Pakistani Islamist leader, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, suspected of masterminding attacks on India’s financial capital and its parliament.

The reward comes at a time of heightened tension between the United States and Pakistan and is likely to increases pressure on Pakistan to take action against the former Arabic scholar, who has recently addressed rallies in Pakistan despite an Interpol warrant for him.

Released from house arrest in 2009, Saeed is a free man in Pakistan.

India has long called for Saeed’s capture and said the bounty – one of the highest on offer – was a sign the United States understood its security concerns. Last week, Saeed evaded police to address an anti-U.S. rally in the Pakistani capital.

“India welcomes this new initiative of the government of the United States,” Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said on Tuesday of the bounty announced on the U.S. Rewards for Justice website.

“In recent years, India and the United States have moved much closer than ever before in our common endeavour of fighting terrorists.”

The United States only offers a $10 million reward for three other people it suspects of terrorism, with a single reward of up to $25 million for Egyptian-born Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. There was previously no U.S. bounty for Saeed.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s economy is exposed to an extended euro zone crisis and policy paralysis at home, while the coalition government is under tremendous strain from scandals and rebellious coalition partners.

The risk of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s second term being cut short before a general election due in 2014 is low, but cannot be ruled out.

The failure of Congress party in state elections in early March, and a looming fight over the cheap sale of coalfields have put him and the party under even more pressure.

The 2012/13 budget, delivered in March, shied away from commitments to bold reform, its cautious tone reflecting the government’s frailty.

RATINGS (Unchanged since March unless stated):

S&P: BBB-

MOODY’S: Baa3