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West Bengal and North East Region (NER) are at the geographical heartland of India for the axis to Act East policy. The proximity of both to South East Asia and East Asia is the bedrock for strategic policies to promote India’s relations with these regions. Nevertheless, West Bengal has an edge over NER. While NER is hamstrung by issues like lacklustre connectivity and wide differences in cultural heritages with mainland of the country, West Bengal is poised as the lever for Act East policy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seen struggling to hold back tears while paying tribute to those who lost their lives in the second wave of Covid. Obviously, the opposition parties are not impressed by what they consider as histrionics. There is no doubt that Modi is an actor par excellence but to doubt the sincerity of his heart in expressing such sentiments in relation to the national tragedy caused by the pandemic would be grossly unfair.

No sooner had the USA and NATO announced the unconditional withdrawal of its troops by the twentieth anniversary of 9-11 attack on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon, rattling the shaky-from-the beginning peace talks, than the diplomatic circles specialising the nebulous geopolitics in the SAARC region had begun keenly awaiting Chinese entry into the Afghan peace process. It will be advantage Pakistan and adversarial to India. But India has to assert itself in filling the vacuum along with Russia and China — a diplomatic and economic compulsion, apart from strategic imperative. India has popular support among the peace-loving Afghan people who can’t forget the traumatic days under the Taliban regime.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The newly sworn in Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government is on cloud nine. It has every right to feel ecstatic as Pinarayi has become the first communist chief minister to win a second consecutive term in office, bucking the trend of the LDF and the UDF alternating in office every five years.

After the 11th round of talks between the Centre and the farmers’ unions broke down on January 22, the Centre preferred to test the patience of the agitating farmers rather than taking initiatives for renewing talks with them. Both the sides remained adamant on their stand on the contentious three farm laws - farmers demanding their withdrawal and the Centre bent upon implementing them. This game must end now before the beginning of the sowing of the kharif crops next month, because it may not only endanger the well-being of the farmers but also the food security of the country.

On March 24, 2020, Narendra Modi had announced that the country would go into a lockdown after four hours! This nation-wide lockdown was to last till the end of May, after which there were local lockdowns but not a general one. It brought acute hardship to millions of the working poor, among whom the migrant workers’ woes received global attention. What was striking about the Indian lockdown was that, in contrast to virtually everywhere else including the US under Trump, no compensation was offered to the people (except paltry amounts to a few specific target groups) for their loss of incomes because of the lockdown. They were pushed into a situation of income loss, destitution and hunger, from which they had not recovered even months after the lifting of the lockdown.

The Left democrats, especially the progressive caucus have achieved a major victory in influencing the foreign policy by persuading the Biden presidency to take a tough line towards aggressive Israeli regime and compelling the prime minister Netanyahu to agree to a cease- fire. This was the first time in the last four months of the Democratic Party regime that the new US administration acted decisively bowing to the pressure of the young squad brigade of the Democratic Party.

New Delhi: Ace goalkeeper Savita feels that Women's hockey team is ready for the Tokyo Olympics . "Our focus right now is on fitness and playing high intensity sessions and setting our body clock to the time we will be playing in Japan," she said.

In the backdrop of Narendra Modi facing the worst drubbing of his political life with international media describing him as “India’s narcissistic Prime Minister” and “shameless demagogue” to revealing steep decline in his popularity, the four-day exercise of “Positivity Unlimited” organised by the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is unambiguously an attempt to protect him from further public denigration and rebuke.

RSS, the ideological harbinger of the Modi government, has come to the scene openly. While the Prime Minister and his team handle the grave situation unleashed by the second wave of the pandemic in their typical style, the RSS patriarchs could grasp the real gravity of the crisis. It is a systemic crisis that has begun to shake the edifices of the government. The RSS could foresee that this cannot be overcome by the usual rhetoric of the Prime Minister alone. The human bodies floating in the holy Ganges do carry a message. It speaks about the social, economic, and spiritual dimension of the crisis which is the net result of the Modi government's health policy. As in other sectors, the policy is indebted to the boundless greed of the corporate capital. The human despair and anger caused by it is not something usual which could be addressed by the usual measures.