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When the protesting students approached Dr. Muhammad Yunus to head interim government in Bangladesh, the Nobel laureate had several examples he could turn to while weighing his options. While French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre declined to be a leader of the 1968 students’ movement, Russian author Alekxander Solzhenstein refused to pursue Presidency in the post-Soviet Union era because he preferred an authoritarian regime with traditional Christian values. Author Vaclav Havel went the other way. He accepted the offer to become President of Czechoslovakia after the Velvet Revolution in 1989.

The latest inflation data, released by the union government on Monday, shows price rise at a lowest clip since 2019. This is good news. But it raises a series of questions as well. The last figure shows overall inflation rate of 3.54 per cent in July 2024, which is far lower than the inflation rate of 5.1 per cent in June.

The shocking incident of rape and murder of a trainee doctor on duty in RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata has shaken the confidence of everyone – from patients and their attendants to doctors on duty, especially women. We need to restore it by eliminating the conditions that lead to endangering the security in hospitals, which is one of the demands of striking doctors across India.

None of the warring factions, Narendra Modi and RSS leadership, is willing to concede even an inch of political space to other. Five hour long high level meet of the top leaders of the BJP and the RSS leaders on Sunday at the residence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh failed to yield any tangible result. It was simply a sort of mood assessing exercise with leaders of both camps discussing relations between the party and the Sangh to the upcoming state elections.

The world’s biggest processor of bauxite into alumina China has to contend with two realities: First, Beijing has introduced more stringent conditions since 2022 for investments in new alumina projects, including brownfield capacity expansion. This has implications for both operating groups and potential new investors. Second, Beijing in its campaign against pollution has not spared alumina making, which generates 1 to 2 tonnes of red mud for every tonne of smelter feedstock production. Red mud unless it is stored and disposed with care is a major environmental hazard.

The news that there is fire in the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine has sent ripples in the minds of people around the globe. Even though no radiation leak has been reported so far, but the danger cannot be ruled out till the fire is extinguished and the plant is finally inspected and given safety clearance by the IAEA. Accidents in the nuclear power plants have grave health and humanitarian consequences. This is well proved in the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents. Therefore the global concern over this fire is genuine. The forces of peace and nuclear disarmament have warned of such an event since the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine over two years ago. The nuclear plant has been under the control of Russia since 2022. Now both Russia and Ukraine are blaming each other for this fire. But whosoever may be responsible, if the fire in the plant increases the impact would be felt in the far flung areas.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s meteoric acceptability is one side of the coin. The flip side is Kamala’s choice for Vice President, Tim Walz, who brought excitement to the Kamala Harris campaign, which the corporate media latched on to push Kamala’s case against Republican candidate Donald Trump, whose running mate JD Vance is the javelin's tip as far as the Trump-Vance ticket is concerned.

A marathon runner from Bhutan who finished the 42.195 km marathon at Paris Olympic in 3 hours 52 seconds and was the last one to finish the race received a rousing ovation from the spectators. Kinzang Lhamo finished the marathon 1.5 hours after the winner, who took the gold medal. Netherlands' Sifan Hassan broke the Olympic women's marathon record by completing it in 2 hours, 22 minutes 55 seconds in the Paris Olympics. But she was not the one who received the loudest of the applause. Just three seconds behind Hassan came Ethiopia's Tigst Assefa who clinched the silver and Kenya's Hellen Obiri defeated compatriot Sharon Lokedi with a four-second margin. But it was the 26-year-old Bhutan's Lhamo who finished last, among all the 80 participants who completed the race, who received a standing ovation from the Paris Olympic crowd.

Republican India on the 78th Independence Day on August 15, 2024 presents a grim picture. It’s leader the Prime Minister is heading a union government of a divided nation for which he is himself responsible as can be deduced from his divisive, communal and polarizing campaign hate speeches during the General Elections to the Lok Sabha 2024 that concluded in June 2024 and his government’s discriminatory and minority bashing actions since 2014. Even after the BJP has been reduced to minority and formed government on the crutches of three supporting parties from Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, his functioning as an autocrat has not mellowed as expected.

It was clear to everyone that SEBI was stonewalling a proper investigation into the charges levelled by the Hindenburg report, except those who had other reasons to pretend otherwise. But there was no clarity as to why SEBI was doing so. Now that Hindenburg has disclosed SEBI chairperson’s and her husband’s investment in one of Adani’s shadow companies the Adani group allegedly used to do questionable transactions, the jigsaw puzzle stands solved.