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The efforts to discredit and denigrate the Left Democratic Front government in Kerala have been mounting in the past few weeks. The Congress-led UDF and the BJP have conducted agitations utilising the gold smuggling case to target Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the LDF government.

The Central Government passed three Labour Codes on September 23, 2020, on Industrial Relations, on Social Security and on Occupational Health & Safety, while the entire opposition had boycotted Parliament in protest against suspension of eight opposition Rajya Sabha MPs. This suspension itself was on the pretext of their “unruly behaviour”, when the government bulldozed Agricultural Laws through the Rajya Sabha, brushing aside the opposition’s demand for a vote, on September 21, 2020.

The statement by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath that the Uttar Pradesh government will make tough laws against Love Jehad is not surprising. Haryana and Madhya Pradesh governments too have now joined the chorus. Haryana’s Minister Anil Vij has gone even further. He said that he would make laws against the newly invented term Love Jehad and will look into all such cases since the formation of Haryana. Their motives are clear; they have never tried to hide them either. It is part of their design to make monolithic society and impose their views on the personal human relationships as well.

The American President Woodrow Wilson proposed at the 1921 World Peace Conference in Paris for the world comity to work for Peace, Promotion of free trade and Popular regimes as the new world objectives. However, no empire in Europe responded to his idea but the great World War leveled them up to end their control over their old settlements in Asia and Africa to give birth to 139 new nations in six years as they struggled for survival.

Public broadcasters (Prasar Bharati) comprising All India Radio (AIR) and Door Darshan (DD) under the Prasar Bharati Act, 1990 (Broadcasting Corporation of India) are together facing acute human resource (manpower) crunch as never before. The result is its inability to compete with private sector electronic media in all aspects of news broadcast, information, education and entertainment so much so that both the public entities designed to empower the people of India on all round development of the nation are reduced to the Goebbelsian instrument of propaganda for the one-man NDA Union Government. Unlike earlier regimes at the Centre, when the public broadcasters apart from getting loin’s share of news and propaganda favourable to the government other national, international and regional news used to be there, presently there is nothing like that; it is one man that matters the most and others are just effaced.

New Delhi: Among the young guns to look out for in the latest edition of the Hero Indian Super League (ISL), which kicks off on November 20 will be former junior international and Indian Arrows forward Rohit Danu.

New Delhi: Hockey goalkeeper Suraj Karkera is back on the pitch. Recovering from dengue and on way to full fitness, he says ‘life is fragile and one needs to be mentally strong to face any eventuality.'

New Delhi: Defending champion Srinu Bugatha and Parul Chaudhary will spearhead the star studded Indian men and women's challange at the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon here on 29 November.

We just saw two election results. One was the defeat of the blatantly anti-people, pro-corporate, racist right-wing authoritarian Donald Trump in the US presidential elections by the Democrat Joe Biden. This should send a huge message to all right-wing parties and leaders who try to divide the people on the basis of race, religion, community and colour in order to capture political power. Trump is accused of destroying the three pillars of American democracy namely Liberty, Rule of Law and Free and Fair elections.

Beginning from November 3 the day of presidential elections in USA, countless Germans also waited, full of angst, for final numbers from distant Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona – while many puzzled over the mysteries of the Electoral College. (Does it have dormitories or offer a degree?) Or why, until January 20, a weird fowl called a lame duck can keep squawking about unfounded, featherless “Fouls”! But as the figures rolled in from Pennsylvania there was a collective German sigh of relief (and a few may have wondered whether Germantown, PA also played a part).