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The BJP President J.P. Nadda addressing a virtual rally recently observed: “Criminalization of politics has scaled new heights, now we all hear about cut money in Bengal. We need to cut to size these leaders who demand cut money. We need to restore Bengal’s glory and remove this government lock, stock and barrel.” He was so right in his observations that what followed a week later confirmed the need for checking the criminalization in politics.

Last week a young woman posted a complaint that since she left her parents’ home she had spent £45,000 on rent and now feared eviction because, under the coronavirus lockdown, she couldn’t work, had exhausted her savings and was thus was unable to pay her rent.

Recently, the apex court on July 7 granted interim protection to Mr. Vinod Dua, a leading journalist, charged with sedition due to his critique of the Government’s mishandling of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Like Jyotiraditya Scindia the scion of the Scindia dynasty of Madhya Pradesh, the deputy chief minister of Rajasthan Sachin Pilot too has been the blue eyed boy of the Gandhi family. Besides these two have one more commonality; both have become the victim of the scheming of Amit Shah.

A former police commissioner of Mumbai, Julio Ribeiro, has called for the inculcation of professionalism in the force. He was speaking in the context of the controversy relating to the post following the Uddhav Thackeray government’s decisions concerning its operation. The retired IPS officer was worried that the person occupying the post was in danger of being reduced to be an “agent of the party or parties in power”.

The banking system has been slowly recovering from the crippling toxic assets problem has hit another roadblock in the form of Covid-19. Rating agency Standard & Poor’s says the asset quality will deteriorate, credit costs rise and profitability decline due to the challenging environment caused by the pandemic.

At a time when India claims that the country is eventually prepared to face any external attack, it reveals little of its actual strength to support the defence and military structure in case of a full-scale war with either China or Pakistan, or both. India’s highly import dependent economy, especially for petroleum, sophisticated arms and ammunitions, strategic materials and even tyres and electronics, is also the biggest employer of foreign ships to them home. Over the years, the government badly neglected its vital merchant shipping capacity. India imports almost 85 percent of its petroleum requirement, largely on foreign tankers. India’s share in world’s seaborne oil and gas export-import trade was 8.89 percent (2018-19) and India’s share in world’s oil and gas tanker tonnage is only 1.83 percent (2019). Indian ships’ share in Indian overseas trade in POL / Products and other liquids in 2017-18 was 49 MMT out of 371 MMT.

The Vikas Dubey drama with the attendant police encounter punctured the high build up of tension over China issue that had begun since 21 of the Indians Armed Forces lost their lives in their brave and successful bid in frustrating the intrusion of the Chinese Armed Forces squad in Indian territory in the Galwan Valley of Ladakh on June 14 night. Since then a young squad had begun to build a climate of war tension with China. The squad launched campaign in different parts to encourage anti China upsurge as if India and China were actually at war while the Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seeking to find solutions through talks across the table. The young squad had been ridiculing the Prime Minister NaMo, as the overcrowding of messages in social media indicated then, for his statement that no intruder in Indian Territory now. NaMo did not deny attempted intrusion but stated that the Indian Force had successfully beaten back the intruders.

Some of the recent developments, though they may look like smaller in content and nature, make it unambiguously clear that Narendra Modi lacks a vision and comprehensive understanding of the prevailing political situation. At least two factors are primary responsible for it; first, his inflated ego, which has been acting as a major hindrance in having an inclusive understanding of the development and second, his not having genuine and honest friends to advise him on sensitive national and international matters.

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice S A Bobde has not been having the best of times. The court’s approach to the migrant workers issue in the decisive early phase of the problem had attracted much criticism. The court appeared to be content with whatever the government said, irrespective of the statements’ incompatibility with the reality. This had caused consternation to social scientists and even legal circles. It was only after widespread resentment found expression in various ways that the court changed its approach. But while doing so, it appeared to blatantly contradict itself. The court’s approach had been rightly described as one of ‘retreating into a self-effacing deference’.