View Articles

Dr Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who helped the WHO eradicate smallpox in the last century says “it’s too late to hope for herd immunity” against Covid-19 and, therefore, the novel coronavirus can be called the “forever virus”, something that wouldn’t sit well with most of us. Dr Brilliant predicts a “long fight” with the coronavirus variants, many of which are in the womb of the future.

LUCKNOW: Enthused by the recent success in panchayat polls which showed the mood of rural voters, Akhilesh Yadav is preparing for Mission 2022 to take on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BJP to capture power. Akhilesh Yadav is in aggressive mood to enter alliances with smaller parties to enlarge the support base to emerge as biggest party after the elections.

Revolt in Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) has signaled a churning in Bihar politics the final outcome of which may not only impact the political fortunes of the party but also of the BJP and JD(U) individually and NDA as a whole, which may also present an opportunity to the RJD led opposition to play some deft political moves of regional importance in Bihar and Jharkhand as well as national significance.

Both the Congress party and the BJP – the two main national parties- are facing internal problems in the states where they rule. The basic difference between the two parties is the Congress is on the decline while the BJP is growing to replace Congress in its heydays.

In March/April 2021, India witnessed a sort of Kurukshetra battle in the soil of West Bengal which is far away from Aryavartha, the Hindi heartland and the epi-centre of both the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata..Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost that battle to the Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on May 2 this year. But the BJP supremo and Hindu Hriday Samrat is now engrossed in strategising for the next battle- a sort of semi final before the final in early 2024.

Despite improvement in human and economic development, Jharkhand is yet to overcome its legacy of numerous problems even after 20 years of its becoming a state. It is a matter of serious concern that the state is the worst in hunger and the second worst in SDG Index among all states in the country, and therefore it urgently requires special assistance from the Centre and the state reworking its priorities.

Yet another example of the Narendra Modi government’s paranoia is the latest amendment of the Central Services (Pensions) Rules which bar all retired officials in intelligence and security services from penning their memoirs. The gag order is unusual in a democracy and can be said to substantiate the charge of India being “partly free” made by the US-based think tank, Freedom House.

At first, it was the virus. Then came the vaccine. China has converted the pandemic into a great opportunity for economic expansion and international cooperation in pursuit of its strategy to become a strong imperial economic power in Asia and other parts of the world. Paradoxically, China has already entrapped India, which had, only a year ago, restricted investment and import flow from the People’s Republic (PRC). India, Asia’s third largest economy after China and Japan, has already buckled under the Chinese pressure to step up import and investment from its giant neighbour.

The first thing to understand about 2022 Presidential elections in France is that it probably won’t go as expected.The last two contests have made a mockery of pundits: around this time in 2016, center-right former PM Alain Juppé of Les Républicains (LR) was the odds-on favorite to succeed François Hollande. Instead, that fall, he lost his party’s primary to the more conservative François Fillon, opening up space in the center for Emmanuel Macron to sneak into the second round. By this time in the year in 2011, the widely expected challenger to Nicolas Sarkozy was former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn — but sexual assault allegations in New York abruptly derailed his political career, opening the door for Hollande to win the Socialist Party (PS) primary.

Currently a question is making rounds in the global political system; which block India would join? Whether it would be Chinese world order or align with the new order which the US president Joe Biden is trying to evolve.