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Hoping for progress, government was claiming the same, but we actually regressed. UNDP’s Human Development Report 2020 has just revealed. In place of human development, India registered a human decline, went two ranks below, from 129th to 131st among 189 countries in the world in 2019. Per capita income fell, health deteriorated, education greatly impacted. Children and women suffered more than men. All these were happening and then came the dark year 2020. Hidden in the dark shadow of the pandemic are the numerous untold miseries we are trying to unearth.

Succeeding generations will perhaps remember us as a generation of dissenters–forever resisting, sloganeering, thriving and rebelling. But they must also remember female dissenters kindly for they have revolutionised the idea of citizenship through consistent dissent.

BJP proposes, Ram disposes! Those who did not know that maxim should sit at the feet of Yogi Adityanath with folded hands. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister is by far closer to Bhagwan Ram than any other mortal in Lord Ram’s scheme of things. The Yogi will be able to explain better things that mortify common folk.

The recently released National Family Health Survey-5 report is a worrying factor. That even after much advertised Poshan Abhiyan the children of our country remain stunted in such a large number calls for review of the efforts to provide nutrition to all the countrymen particularly the children. There are three criteria for malnutrition, low height for the age called as stunting, low weight for the height labeled as wasting and low weight for age that is underweight. According to these criteria 31.96 per cent children were found to be stunted 17.29 per cent children are wasted and 26.95 per cent children are underweight. In its report, The State of the World’s Children 2019, UNICEF has pointed out that Malnutrition caused 69 per cent of deaths of children below the age of five in India.

The Supreme Court refusing to “interfere with the (farmers’) protest”, holding the view “at this stage the agitation should be allowed to continue without impediment” as they have right to carry out protests and not passing an order to evict the agitating farmers, have not gone down well with the Modi government.

The kisan agitation has become more than simply a fight for MSP or against the corporatization of agriculture. Through its practice, it is recovering a narrative that is opposed to the hegemonic narrative promoted under neo-liberalism. And as the Modi government’s skullduggery for breaking the movement intensifies in the coming days, this recovery will become more and more comprehensive, clear-cut, and oppositional. Let me illustrate the point by referring to the narrative about the ‘nation’.

New Delhi: Junior women hockey team has only one aim and that is to win the Asia Cup next year and then play the World Cup, said goalkeeper Khushboo.

Jamshedpur: Bengaluru’s Chikkarangappa S struck a blistering 10-under-62 to take the first round lead at the TATA Steel Tour Championship 2020 being played at the Beldih and Golmuri golf courses in Jamshedpur.

Bambolim: Bengaluru piled on further misery on Odisha with a 2-1 win in the Hero Indian Super League at GMC Stadium, Bambolim, on Thursday.

Goa: After a terrific start to the season, NorthEast United will be keen to consolidate their place among the Hero Indian Super League frontrunners and extend their unbeaten streak when they lock horns with Jamshedpur at the Tilak Maidan Stadium, here on Friday.