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Suddenly Rahul Gandhi is the flavour of season. If you look at the hard data, the BJP lost only 1.2% of the popular vote share, and the Congress gained 1.49 %. It is not as if whopping numbers swayed from one side to the other. The BJP still has 240 seats despite being in power for ten years with majority, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pre-poll alliance of the NDA has moved into his third term in office.

India’s workforce greatly suffered in 2023-24 due to Centre’s neglect, as it is reflected in the recently released annual report data of the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment. Under the Social Security Schemes and Projects for Workers, Union Budget has provided Rs 12434.82 crore, which was decreased to Rs 11714.99 crore in the revised estimate, but actual expenditure was only Rs 8333.34 crore upto December 31, 2023. This data does not support PM Modi’s claim of employment generation referring the RBI data which showed 46.6 per cent increase from 596.7 million to 643.3 million. Had it been true, the expenditure on social security and welfare schemes for workers must have registered a significant increase rather than a sharp reduction from the allocated budgetary provision.

Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia on July 8 and 9, the first since Ukraine war, carries major significance. India’s shifting of oil dependence from OPEC to Russia opens a new chapter of economic relation between the two nations, after it was subdued with the breakdown of Soviet Union in 1991. Apart from defence and political security, India-Russia partnership extended to oil energy cooperation – a signal for revival of economic cooperation between the two countries.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It would have been a strong contender for the best joke of the year award but for the sheer hypocrisy and shamelessness that animated the claims. The reference is to the brazen Congress attempt to claim credit for the Vizhinjam international transshipment port project. The party, which opposed Kerala’s dream project at every level, has now come up with the astounding claim that the project should be named after former chief minister of Kerala, the late Oommen Chandy!

Changing names is a national pursuit. Shopkeepers and restaurateurs have been routinely using certain namesakes for their businesses to make a killing during key seasons. At another level, the romantics have been faking monikers for the easy access it gave them into lonely hearts. That this pursuit has been called ‘Love Jihad’ is hotly contested as the central government says it doesn’t recognize ‘Love Jihad’, the same central government that is run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, earlier called the “Modi Government” but now with the name-changed out of coalition-compulsion into “NDA Government”. Some UP politicians even spoke of “Vote Jihad” right now, politics is being played in the name of 'Naam Batao' in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Any lingering doubts on who is in control in Uttar Pradesh went out the window the minute Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath disregarded all opposition to the restrictions placed on eateries along Kanwar Yatra routes, including the objections from NDA allies JD-U and the RLD, and ordered that the advisory asking eateries along ‘Kanwar routes’ to display name-plates with "true names" has been extended to the entire state of Uttar Pradesh. No sooner this was announced, neighbouring BJP-ruled Uttarakhand also followed suit!

French President Emanuel Macron exposed his true political shade at the first session of the newly elected national assembly on July 18 when he took the help of the right wingers to defeat the nominee of the New Popular Front Andre Chassaigne in the election for the post of the president of the national assembly. Macron’s candidate Braun Pivet won following a deal with the right wingers. The contest was close. NFP’s communist nominee lost by only eight votes.

China has just concluded its “third plenum” (from 15 to 18 July) which traditionally re-examines and gives fresh directions in the country’s economic policy. The all-powerful Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party generally holds seven plenums in five years, of which the third is devoted to looking at economic issues and policy challenges before the country.

Senior BJP leaders engaging in solecism in Uttar Pradesh and Bengal certainly can not be described as factional feud. Instead it unravels the contagious malaise that afflicts the party, endangering its current level of functioning. It may sound to be baloney, but the party imbibing the Hindutva cause has never been faced with this nature of crisis; emergence of rebellion against the top leadership of the party. There is no doubt it has deeper and wider implication and dynamics than it appears to be. It ought to be not forgotten that these two states had played crucial role in defeating Narendra Modi and shattering the myth of his “Modi’s Guarantees”.

Uttar Pradesh is witnessing a political heat soaring fast on communal lines. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has issued a new order on Friday, July 19, 2024 for eateries on the route of Kanwar Yatras in the Hindu religious month of Shravan beginning from July 22 this year, to display the names of their owners, only a day after Muzaffarnagar Police had to modify such an order after a backlash to just an appeal urging “voluntarily display”.