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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala has requested that the State be allowed flexibility to modify the lockdown-related guidelines in the battle against Covid-19.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s message to the nation just ahead of launching the fourth phase of ‘lockdown’ measures was primarily recapitulation, populist in nature and designed to boost his personality cult. His speech lacked any definite direction. The speech did not carry the signature of Narendra Modi for which he is known.

The prime minister’s address to the nation has laid out a plan for completely rebooting India’s economic model in the context of the experience of the corona virus pandemic and the shape of the global economy that he possibly foresees.

A coalition of leading left wing intellectuals and political leaders led by Noam Chomsky, Bernie Sanders, Yanis Varoufakis and Naomi Klein officially launched on May 11 the Progressive International (PI) with the support of the Democracy of the Europe Movement 2025 and the Sanders Institute.

As COVID-19 maintains its devastating spread throughout the world, it has found an unlikely ally: The United States government.

Who runs the world? So goes Beyonce’s foot-stomping, adrenaline-raising battle-cry for women masquerading as a pop song. But with full deference to the queen, the question is not of who, but how we run the world?

The head of World Food Program David Beasley cautioned the UN Security Council last week of the hunger pandemic that the world was facing. He warned that this could push the global fraternity to “multiple famines of biblical proportions” within a few months if immediate action isn’t taken. What was most significant was he went upto predicting that at least three dozen countries would face acute famine.

While there was disappointment within the Congress party that interim president Sonia Gandhi was not very active and former chief Rahul Gandhi was indifferent to politics, the Covid-19 outbreak seems to have brought them back to the forefront again. Sonia and Rahul are proactive again, taking up the challenge against the coronavirus pandemic-induced political chaos. Their return to form has boosted the morale of the Congress workers who were previously rather demoralized.

By sealing its borders with West Bengal to prevent the spread of the corona virus pandemic, Assam has joined Bihar and Odisha, whose authorities had done so already.

The vitriolic campaign which the Union Home Minister Amit Shah has launched against Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress government is part of his much bigger strategy to prove his invincibility for his party.