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LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party national president and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav's announcement in Prayagraj that his party will contest 2027 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh under INDIA alliance has boosted the morale of his PDA (pichda, dalit and alpsangkhayak) core programme and the cadres of both the SP and the Congress.

Last week, a Supreme Court bench’s observation on the use of Urdu, has once again opened a pandora’s box, on the treatment meted out to Urdu – a language of connoisseurs, but which has been appended to the Muslim community. As in the past, this time too, nothing worthwhile would come out of this development, as Urdu has been relegated to its current status by the Urdu lovers only.

The Supreme Court’s interim order on the controversial Waqf Amendments Act has created an unusual equilibrium among opposing camps, hinting at a calculated balancing act rather than a decisive intervention. While the order does not represent a full-fledged stay on the implementation of the amendments, it introduces a layer of judicial restraint that both reassures and unsettles, depending on which side one is on. It leaves the legal battlefield open, but the signs—however faint—point toward an eventual consolidation of the government’s position. By allowing the government time to marshal more robust arguments while maintaining the status quo, the court has set the stage for a more thorough examination that could eventually legitimise the amendments in question.

Informal employment in the total employment in India remains almost stagnant at around 90 per cent since 2014, according to a latest ILO report. It was worse in 2024 than the global average of 58 per cent, Asia Pacific average of 66 per cent, and worse than neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.

With Trump’s tariff war escalating woes to China, a new plank is established for India to be the hub for global supply chain. Caught in the crossfire of highest hike in tariff by 245 percent on import from China by Trump administration, China will lose its hegemony in supply chain. Eventually, new opportunity will open up for India to bid challenge to China as well as Vietnam - the extension of Chinese workshop.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah are striving hard to find a consensus candidate as the NDA chief minister in Bihar. , but the Mahagathbandhan has struck a major psychological blow to Modi and Shah by creating a Coordination Committee headed by the RJD leader Tejashvi Yadav, the leader of opposition in Bihar assembly. This decision of the opposition leader is in fact virtually leaves no space for any speculation about the opposition candidate for the task of CM. CPI(ML)-Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said the formal announcement would be met after some time. They are not in a hurry. The next meeting of the opposition leaders would take place on May 4.

Who won and who lost? The anti-waqf amendments lobby claims the government was forced to eat crow and give an undertaking to protect the status of notified and registered Waqf properties, including the all-important waqf-by-user properties. The government also had to promise not to appoint any non-Muslim to the Waqf Council or waqf boards till the final verdict.

The Supreme Court has delivered a truly historic verdict, which protects the federal principle and declares any action taken by a Governor to thwart the will of the state legislature as unconstitutional. The 414-page judgment delivered by a two-member Bench of the Supreme Court, consisting of Justice J B Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan, has boldly called to account the misuse of the Constitutional post by Governor R N Ravi of Tamil Nadu, who withheld assent for Bills passed by the state legislature.

Donald Trump has put off his proposed tariffs by ninety days; but countries like India have to respond to Trump’s measures whether now or after ninety days. These measures are not just an episodic act. Trump clearly threatens with tariffs any country that dares to act in a manner not approved by him; he is weaponising tariffs to assert US hegemony, quite apart from using them for economic ends like raising domestic activity and reducing the US current account deficit. We are in short witnessing a new phase of world capitalism; and for countries like India to pretend otherwise and carry on with “business as usual” would be absurd. “Business as usual” had brought great suffering to the working people of the country even in its heyday; to persist with it in the new situation will bring even greater suffering and even greater subservience to American dictates.

BHOPAL: The politics in Madhya Pradesh has got fresh heat with the confrontation between the Congress and the pro-BJP Baba Ramdev. The Congress veteran leader Digvijay Singh issued strongly worded statement against Baba Ramdev. Not only that, he went to the extent of filing a complaint against him at the police thana.