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On the day the Time magazine listed Dadi of Shaheen Bagh' 82-year-old Bilkis, a regular at the anti-CAA protest venue, as one of the top 100 influential people in the world, the Delhi police, “the most imaginative and efficient force in the world, even more intelligent than the Scotland Yard,” has come out with the revealing information that the women protesters were paid ‘daily wages’, used by the accused for ‘gender cover’, for secular cover and media cover.

The crucial hiatus between the ruling Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice) , and its satellites on the one hand and the Opposition whose main constituents in terms of parliamentary strength are Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and Jamiar Ulema-e-Islam (Fazl-ur-Rehman) widens with the formation of the Pakistan Democratic movement at an All Parties Conference last Sunday (20 September) and adoption of a 26-point resolution –aiming at an end of the rule of PTI whose subservience to the army biggies are increasingly open.

The two bills rammed through parliament last week were objectionable in every conceivable sense. The very fact of their being rammed through the Rajya Sabha, without being put to vote despite demands for a division, was grossly anti-democratic. The fact of the centre making unilateral and fundamental changes in agricultural marketing arrangements which fall within the state list of the seventh schedule of the constitution was a blow against federalism. To resurrect the pre-independence arrangement under which the peasantry was exposed to the capitalist market without any support of the State, and which crushed it during the Great depression of the 1930s, was a betrayal of the promise of independence. To pit millions of small peasants against the might of a handful of private buyers, as the bills propose to do, was to open them up to monopsonistic exploitation.

On August 5, 2020, an unprecedented incident took place in post- independence India. For the first time, a prime minister of the country had laid the foundation stone of a religious temple. It was Ram Mandir in Ayodhya amidst Corona scare. It was to raise Hindutva hype for a political purpose. It is not unusual for the prime minister or the present government itself, though they have managed to forget many other things, and among those is the celebration of bi-centenary of Pandit Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar. The title Vidyasagar means an ocean of learning and it was the honour he was awarded in his lifetime itself.

Bihar elections are barely a month away but everything isn’t fine within the ruling NDA camp. If there is an internal tussle between the chief minister Nitish Kumar led JD(U) and the BJP over seat-sharing, there is an open rift that can be easily witnessed between the JD(U) and Chirag Paswan led LJP. Importantly, LJP and JD(U) never contested any assembly polls in the state under the same alliance in the past.

The truncated monsoon session of parliament has been, in every sense, the worst session of parliament ever held, except probably the one during the emergency in 1976 that adopted the 42nd constitutional amendment meant to facilitate an authoritarian regime.

The legal fraternity is largely seen as a male bastion with little space for women. Of course, things have changed phenomenally over the years since 1923 when Regina Das’s application for enrolment was rejected by two High Courts of India on grounds of gender.

Marriages are made in heaven, divorces in courts. A heavenly marriage was divorced in the Supreme Court by Tatas and Mistry family early this week.

Accountability is a sine qua non – an essential condition – to good democratic governance. And the condition for the survival of our democracy is commitment towards our Constitution, the edifice on which stands the country. Today we have been witness to total reversal of the same. There have been attempts to destroy the credibility of the Parliament itself, to destroy its character as a consultative institution, as a platform for debate, and to reject or pass any bill brought to it by the government. The bills must be discussed within limits of time, including the amendments. Then comes the division, of opinions, of negation or assertion. The speaker is bound to allow this. It was the three agrarian bills that the government was keen to pass. But the demand of division of members’ opinion was not accepted.

Six months have passed since the announcement of lockdown on March 24. The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India stood on that date at 564, 10th death was reported from Mumbai, and 37 patients were discharged from hospitals so far. Modi government opted for complete lockdown to break the chain of transmission of the infection and prevent the outbreak from moving to the next stage. Now, six months after on September 24 at 8 AM, India reported 57,32,518 confirmed cases, 91,149 deaths, and 46,74,987 recoveries so far. India is now in the process of unlocking. The data shows that the objectives of lockdown have miserably failed, rising infection points towards lapses in precautionary measures, and deaths expose the clinical mismanagement. “Rethink on the strategy” is the PM’s advice to the CMs of the seven worst affected states, an important advice that he himself needs to work on.