According to http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/set-password.html the preferred syntax for changing password is now ALTER USER. Should be implemented when PMA_MYSQL_INT_VERSION >= 50706, but watch out for MariaDB version numbers being higher.
Sorry Madhura, we got a pull request on this one.
Implemented: https://github.com/phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin/commit/dbba36e0b84a62573be7422d3d863cfb0a1d6af0
https://github.com/phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin/commit/d9fdf6b9aa6a0dcd494ffebfa2e26e1f1eb0050f
Sorry Madhura, we got a pull request on this one.
Implemented:
https://github.com/phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin/commit/dbba36e0b84a62573be7422d3d863cfb0a1d6af0
https://github.com/phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin/commit/d9fdf6b9aa6a0dcd494ffebfa2e26e1f1eb0050f