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The morning of June 6, 2018, gave me a horrific memory that perhaps will never fade. Early in the morning, I received a phone call that police were at the house of Advocate Surendra Gadling again. The memory of the raid of April 17, 2018, was still fresh. The impending dramatic turn of events was to change the lives of many of us; it was going to expose us to such realities which we had not even dreamt of.

The bellicose tradition of Taliban stops at new crossroads, the complete withdrawal of US troops from the Afghan soil by 9/11 this year, as per an agreement signed between the USA and the Taliban on 29 February, 2020. They are ostensibly peace-loving. Incredible as it may seem, The Taliban leaders stated that their views on women’s rights have gone through a process of evolution. .Women, they agree, should “serve their society in the education, business, health and social fields while maintaining correct Islamic Hijab”. This is in contrast to the nightmarish Taliban era (1996-2001) that imposed a harsh version of the Islamic rule banning girls from going to school and women from working outside their homes.

The people of the Lakshadweep guard their ‘Muslimness’ like the British the Kohinoor! And, if there’s an ‘Indian’ law they love to hate, it’s the Special Marriage Act, 1954. Also, Mahatma Gandhi is persona non-grata in the archipelago as also Ganesha with his elephant head. There’s the oft-quoted story that “the people in the Lakshadweep Islands came to know of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination 14 days after it happened.”

Remember MAT, or the minimum alternative tax, that was proposed in the union budget years back in the UPA government days. The measure was conjured up by the then finance minister to bring some Indian corporate biggies under the tax which had avoided paying any tax whatsoever by taking advantage of perfectly legal tax breaks. It was hotly contested then, including some Indian subsidiaries of multinational corporations.

There are signs that the BJP expects to ride out the Covid-19 storm and remain ensconced in power at the centre and in some of the states for quite some time.

The country’s fragile federal democratic system is under attack once again. This time, the Centre, hypersensitive about its supremacy over states, seems to have faulted the West Bengal government and its chief minister (CM) on political mannerism as she kept the prime minister (PM) waiting after the appointed time for a cyclone impact review meeting at Kalaikunda in West Midnapore. PM Narendra Modi may have reasons to be upset with Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s handling of their scheduled review meeting of Cyclone Yaas’s impact on the state, but few can justify the centre’s immediate penal action to recall the state’s chief secretary and ask him “to report to the Department of Personnel and Training, North Block, New Delhi by 10 am on May 31, 2021.” as if the chief secretary was responsible for the political goof-up.

The ideal launching of the Sangh centenary celebration from mid 2024 can be only in installation of the BJP government under the man chosen by the Sangh chief, in and after the 2024 polls with NaMo visible nowhere in proximity of Indian politics. But it can remain and will turn out to be only a daydream especially without winning power in the next assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh due in 1922. Two events needing the popular verdict can turn the reality to be only wishful thinking.

COVID-19 has disrupted the personal and professional lives of most people. More than three million globally have succumbed to the virus and across sectors, people have lost jobs and livelihoods. The pandemic has been the greatest human tragedy the world has witnessed in the last 100 years. Due to the indomitable efforts of the medical community, many lives were saved and with more people getting vaccinated, chances of herd immunity setting in are likely in the distant future. But there is an elephant in the room: Climate Change.

In Assam, old ethnic tensions over identity politics are set for a revival under a new format. Jana Gosthiya Samannay Parishad Asom (JGSPA). This new organisation is conducting what it calls a digital census for homegrown Assamiya-speaking Muslims only. The objective is: to identify/ separate native Assamiya speaking Muslims from the ‘Mians’ — that is Bengali-speaking Muslims settled in Assam since 1920s and thereafter.

A section of liberals sympathise with the sentiment expressed by Narendra Modi on the death of the “kuch log” (some people) and even argue that it would be unfair to treat his tears as that of a crocodile. One ought not forget that it took nearly sixteen months and the death of nearly 40 lakh people, according to the New York Times, to make Modi sympathise with these people. Though belated it underlines the level and nature of sensitivity he possesses.