View Articles

Like many people I’ve followed and been inspired by the extensive news coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests in the US. But I really didn’t understand their extraordinary size until I read a recent New York Times analysis.

BERLIN – Despite concern here about the continuing coronavirus danger, some still have an eye or an ear for new dangers on the international relations front. If they look and listen hard they are hearing an unusual tearing sound.

Afghan Covid-19 patients are picking up the opium habit to pander to the coronavirus vice, liking and getting addicted to opium’s painkilling prowess; many believing that Covid-19 isn’t ‘real’ but a manifestation of God’s anger and distaste against man's cupidity for waste. But to get the opium, the route the Afghan takes is via the Taliban. Opium growers in Afghanistan have to get the Taliban's nod to grow and sell opium and the other narcotic derivatives of the poppy seed and flower. Afghanistan produces over 80 per cent of the world opium and it finances lots of things including its war on those waging the war on terror! Afghans testing coronavirus positive push a seed-size quantity of the sticky opium under the tongue and wait for the narcotic to take hold and play its magic, numb the pain and transport the Covid-19 opium user to another different world where there’s no coronavirus.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In politics, timing is as important as perception. If you get your timing wrong you are bound to land yourself in deep trouble.

Even while the upper caste Brahmins of Uttar Pradesh are yet to reconcile to the brutal reality of cold blooded murder of their Robinhood, Vikas Dubey, the BSP chief Mayawati has started working on the plan to reach out to them and float a new Dalit-Brahmin alliance in the state.

The BJP President J.P. Nadda addressing a virtual rally recently observed: “Criminalization of politics has scaled new heights, now we all hear about cut money in Bengal. We need to cut to size these leaders who demand cut money. We need to restore Bengal’s glory and remove this government lock, stock and barrel.” He was so right in his observations that what followed a week later confirmed the need for checking the criminalization in politics.

Last week a young woman posted a complaint that since she left her parents’ home she had spent £45,000 on rent and now feared eviction because, under the coronavirus lockdown, she couldn’t work, had exhausted her savings and was thus was unable to pay her rent.

Recently, the apex court on July 7 granted interim protection to Mr. Vinod Dua, a leading journalist, charged with sedition due to his critique of the Government’s mishandling of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Like Jyotiraditya Scindia the scion of the Scindia dynasty of Madhya Pradesh, the deputy chief minister of Rajasthan Sachin Pilot too has been the blue eyed boy of the Gandhi family. Besides these two have one more commonality; both have become the victim of the scheming of Amit Shah.

A former police commissioner of Mumbai, Julio Ribeiro, has called for the inculcation of professionalism in the force. He was speaking in the context of the controversy relating to the post following the Uddhav Thackeray government’s decisions concerning its operation. The retired IPS officer was worried that the person occupying the post was in danger of being reduced to be an “agent of the party or parties in power”.