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New Delhi: Anurag Thakur on Thursday took charge as the 17th sports minister of the country succeeding Kiren Rijiju.

The Latin American countries are in the midst of a major political turmoil as in Peru, the rightists led by the defeated candidate Ms. Fujimori have launched a vigorous campaign to nullify the results of the presidential elections held last month in which the leftwing candidate Pedro Castillo won by 44,000 votes. The Peruvian army sources are hinting that they do not like the left and that has led to apprehensions that the conservative army leadership may stage a coup on the lines of Bolivia held in 2019.

With the reshuffle of the Union Cabinet, realignment in Bihar politics has just begun. The already dominant OBC politics in Bihar is sure to undergo a change because the BJP has focused on the OBC politics in the country which is also indicated in the inclusion of a record 27 OBC ministers in the newly reshuffled Union cabinet. The most fluid SC politics is the state may also undergo further realignment, the process of which has begun with inclusion of a rebellion LJP leader into the cabinet. BJP hopes to gain from these political churning, but only time will tell which of the political parties in Bihar actually benefited.

More than the inclusion of Sarbananda Sonowal and Jyotiraditya Scindia in Narendra Modi’s new cabinet, which was expected, it is the unexpected exclusion of old hands like Harsh Vardhan, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar which is surprising.

Narendra Modi loyalists and sycophants have been raining accolades on him for Wednesday’s union cabinet rejig and describing him as the most visionary leaders for his move to show the door to his ministerial colleagues, Dr Harsh Vardhan, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar and Ramesh Pokhriyal.

In the deep shadows of Pandemic, the society faces a divide, etched in blood. The vast sections of the masses, fighting the acute scarcity and steep rise in prices of essentials, also realise that the challenges are inherent in the system itself. To surmount them needs a struggle at the basics. The French revolution in 1789 had started with a hike in taxes on loaves. The epoch-making change came only after miseries and the exploitation of the masses reached a quantitative saturation that was imperative for the qualitative change. People were burdened with unprecedented tax hike, rise in prices, without consideration for other interruptions in agrarian production. Starving and dying, they could not face another blow, and stood up to fight for justice.

Father Stan Swamy, 84 years old Jesuit priest, left us all, felled by institutional murder. His death is the direct outcome of the corporate-fascist nexus running amok in the country. Falsely labelled as an anti-national, incarcerated for eight months awaiting trial, Father Stan had dedicated his life and work for the fundamental rights of Adivasi people in the country, particularly in Jharkhand. His was one of the loudest voices opposing the loot of land and resources by the State and corporates. Born in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu, Father Stan chose Jharkhand as his home. A champion of Adivasi life and dignity, his allyship with the community was marked by honesty and dedication.

The opening of a judicial probe in France on June 14, 2021, into suspected ‘corruption’, ‘influence-peddling’, ‘money laundering’, ‘favouritism and undue tax waivers’ surrounding the €7.87 billion Rafale-India deal has given new life to a major scandal that the Narendra Modi government has done its best to cover up. The decision of the French National Financial Prosecutor's Office (the parquet national financier or PNF) to support the opening of a judicial investigation into the deal was based on a complaint by Sherpa, an anti-corruption French NGO. The decision was triggered by a series of investigative articles (titled the “Rafale Papers”) published by Mediapart, the independent French online investigative journal.

Doubt if ex-health minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan has many fans. Maybe close kin, and a few good friends. But, is he the incompetent he’s made out to be because he was shown the door by Prime Minister Narendra Modi? The question includes almost all of the dozen ministers booted out of the Council of Ministers in the cabinet reshuffle done by PM on Wednesday evening.

New Delhi: Ace striker and two- time Olympian Jagbir Singh has exuded confidence that Manpreet Singh-led Indian hockey side will do at Tokyo Games what the previous teams couldn't do at the last nine Olympics.