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India’s latest GDP figures could not have come at a better time for the ruling party BJP.. As the final phase of parliamentary voting draws to an end, the GDP figures for 2023-24 at 8.2 per cent show a hefty growth rate of the Indian economy. If the BJP led NDA wins in the polls, which is the most probable event, the financial market could be predicted to soar high.

Narendra Modi attempting to sully the dignity of Mahatma Gandhi by saying that nobody knew Gandhi in post-colonial India until British film maker Richard Attenborough's Academy Award-winning 1982 ‘Gandhi’ was released, is undoubtedly the worst nature of conduct to demean him. It’s a matter of shame for Gujarat that Modi was unaware of the global stature of Gandhi, a fellow Gujarati. However, distortion of historical facts is second nature to the RSS of thought.

So the Congress goes ahead and boycotts the exit polls in the TV studios post the last vote cast in seven states and Chandigarh in the 7th phase of the 2024 elections and the main opposition party is missed. The fact of the matter was, the Congress just couldn’t trust the harbingers of glad tidings to the man meditating on the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari. The Congress saw not defeat but deceit awaiting the INDIA bloc in the exit polls on the evening of June 1.

This correspondent has covered Lok Sabha elections right from 1962. Polls in 1962 were not delinked. The big news then was Dr K N Katju, who was chief minister of newly formed state—Madhya Pradesh— was defeated by an unknown Vadiya from Jaora constituency. Though Dr. Katju was a Kashmiri he always claimed he originally came from Jaora, a town in Madhya Pradesh.

Campaign for the Lok Sabha election 2024 has brought India’s faultlines in sharp focus – which included the falling credibility of the Election Commission of India (ECI) in ensuring free and fair election, the apparent threat to democracy and the Constitution, widening chasm between the religious majority and minorities, unprecedented level of unemployment, and ever rising inequality in the society. It is in sharp contrast to the dominant issue of national security during the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign that had come into centre stage just after the Pulwama attack on security forces in February, which relegated all other burning issues, including high unemployment and the devastating demonetisation impact on the livelihood, in the rear.

Two Assamese defend Prime Minister Narendra Modi as often as they invent a chance. One of them is Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. The other, a journalist-turned-media baron who never tires of praising the Prime Minister. Both these gentlemen are ever ready to do a full-stretch 'sashtang-pranam' at the Prime Minister’s feet at the drop of a hint from the Prime Minister’s aides. Of the two, CM Biswa Sarma takes the cake, primarily because of his funny Guwahati accent.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Opposition parties’ latest attempt to discredit the Left Democratic Front (LDF) has come to grief, causing acute embarrassment to them as usual.

An object lesson in how fascistic outfits operate is provided by the BJP’s attitude towards an inheritance tax. The fact that there has been an immense increase in income and wealth inequality in the country during the neoliberal era is well-known. Indeed this is not a phenomenon confined to India alone; it is an international phenomenon which has been much discussed even in high-bourgeois circles for quite some time. At the World Economic Forum for instance the need for taking some countervailing measures has been repeatedly mentioned.

As the world is on a boil with wars raging between Russia and Ukraine and the Israeli onslaught on Palestinians, world leaders and intellectuals are hard-pressed to comprehend and rationalize the gruesome developments.

Lok Sabha Election 2024 campaign ended on Thursday May 30, but after raising unprecedented level of political dust which will take much longer time beyond its result on June 4 to settle. Irrespective of who or which political party or alliance wins, people will continue to suffer from the “We and They” syndrome, a condition caused by the political dust, both horizontally and vertically. It may cause rise of political violence or violent incidents of political nature which should cause concern to the citizens.