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BHOPAL: Both Congress and BJP have initiated efforts to persuade their rebel candidates to withdraw their nominations. November 14 is the last day for withdrawal.

For the time being, Justice Indu Malhotra’s dissent on women’s entry into the Swami Ayyappa Temple rules. The warlike postures hold but the war drums will beat less and less till the old and the middle-aged will wilt in break-heart pass. A couple of generations, and Swami Ayyappan will lose his Aadhaar card. There exists a young horde, who does not want to reveal their hand, yet. But what use the high human indices Kerala has achieved if the arcane and superstitious are not cast asunder.

Every year, the most diligent promoters of Armistice Day promise something new and different. The broadcasting media, in particular, tell us they will not only be commemorating the scores of millions who perished in 20th-century wars. They will, we are assured, be looking at why they died — not just at who, how and where. Yet this never happens. Nor could it, without exposing the whole history of deception, delusion, hypocrisy, betrayal, barbarism and exploitation that is the real history of British imperialism.

Europe is currently reliving through the painful memories of its history. More particularly, that part of its recent history in the first half of the twentieth century when two bloody wars had devastated the continent and decimated its population.

The constitutional coup – his critics say highly unconstitutional – that Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena sought to carry off by sacking Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and appointing Mahinda Rajapaksa in his place has landed him in a soup. Not only did Wickremesinghe challenge the President by telling him that under the constitution he was still the Prime Minister and would not vacate his official residence Temple Tree, Sirisena found to his dismay that his action had invited criticism of the U.S. and other Western countries.

Officials in the finance ministry may disagree, foreign portfolio investors may not be seeing India an attractive destination, at least for now. Overseas investors pulled out a massive Rs 38,900 crore (over $5 billion) from the capital markets, last month. It was the steepest outflow in nearly two years. In November 2016, FPIs had pulled out Rs 39,396 crore from the capital markets. The total outflow from the capital markets (equity and debt together) has reached over Rs 1 trillion so far, this year. FPIs are becoming increasingly cautious about the Indian market. It is not clear if this has anything to do also with the government’s bid to seize RBI’s key powers in the face of uncertain trade and economic developments.

It cannot be an early warning because it’s far too late. The communalisation of electoral politics is an ‘eyesore’ that should be avoided because it has consequences. More ears have been punctured by it than the entire population of earth counted 10 times over. But, maybe not for the first time, an MLA of the Kerala Assembly K Mohammd Shaji has been punished for allegedly appealing to the communal virus to help him win an election. It’s been ruled an 'eyesore' because there is physical evidence to prove his ‘crime’, one that the eye can see, is in full eyesight.

Year after year India’s ratings in human development index and hunger index are falling. We have fallen even below other South Asian countries. Our position in hunger index is 103 out of 119 countries. In 2017 our ranking was 100. In contrast, China is at 25th, Nepal 72nd, Myanmar 68th, Sri Lanka at 67th and Bangladesh at 86th position. It is no matter to rejoice that Pakistan is below us at the 106th rating. Hunger index is based on the level of nourishment, child mortality, child wasting and child stunting.

BHOPAL: Both the major parties of Madhya Pradesh have gone through the agony of defection by their stalwarts. Two important Congress leaders severed ties from the party following denial of tickets to their sons. They are Satya Vrat Chaturvedi from Chhatarpur and Prem Chand Guddu from Ujjain. Defection by Chaturvedi has shocked everyone because his family was regarded as Congress loyalists since the formation of Madhya Pradesh. His father Babu Ram Chaturvedi was a minister and mother Vidyawati Chaturvedi served the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha two terms each. Satyavrat himself was MLA and two-term Rajya Sabha member. Similarly Guddu was elected to the Lok Sabha on Congress ticket.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Cleverness is an essential part of a politician’s stock-in-trade. But when you try to be too clever, you end up with egg on your face.