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India banned 59 Chinese smartphone applications, including some popular ones like TikTok, Shareit, UCBrowser, Club Factory and Cam Scan this Monday. The reasons cited by the Modi government has indeed been of very serious nature. If the officials of the Modi government are to be believed these apps were endangering the security integrity and sovereignty of India. Obviously any government which has been concerned of the national interest would not allow theses apps to be operational in public domain.

Extreme situations bring forth extreme thinking. When the world is facing economic crisis from coronavirus pandemic and government spending is shooting through the roof, Modern Monetary Theory —or better known now-a-days as MMT— is putting forward an alternative viewpoint — don’t bother about rising deficit in government budget.

The government claim that the money raised through the daily hike in fuel prices is going into the hands of the poor people is a joke more cruel than the one-paisa cut it announced at around the same time two years ago.

India-Nepal relations soured recently after the Nepal Government claimed three Indian territories to be their own – Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura in Uttarakhand. The total area is 335 sq. kms. The Nepali side not only claimed these Indian territories but published a new map showing these areas to be in Nepal. The map was later presented to and approved by the Nepali Parliament. Nepal quoted the Treaty of Sugauli, signed in 1816 in support of its claims. The Treaty of Sugauli was between the East India Company and Rajguru Gajaraj Mishra with Chandra Shekhar Upadhyaya for Nepal after the Anglo-Nepalese war (November 1814 to March 1816).

My mind pulls me backward to 1938 when I was not even born. A national inter-university debate competition was taking place at the University Institute Hall in Kolkata. The motion was that ‘the only way to achieve the independence of India was the Gandhian path of non-violence’. The student who was judged the best was Majhar Ali Khan of Lahore in his early twenties, having spoken against the motion. He was later an outstanding journalist of the sub-continent and was the father of Tariq Ali, the famous leader of student uprising in the late 1960s. A yet- to-complete seventeen lad became the third speaking in support of the motion. He was Jolly Mohan Kaul whose mundane innings came to a halt at 98-plus on 29 June 2020.He was the last living member of the national council of the undivided Communist Party of India at the fifth party congress (Amritsar 1958).

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The crisis bedevilling the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) has deepened with the Congress leadership expelling the Jose K Mani-led faction in the Kerala Congress(M).

The announcement to form a Third Front by the former Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha on Saturday is more than his expression of intent and interest to effectively intervene in the election to the Bihar assembly.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi turned 50 last week and celebrated it quietly in view of the coronavirus outbreak. His father Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister at the age of 40. Rahul too could have become the Prime Minister in 2009 when the Congress returned to power, or at least a minister during the ten years of the UPA rule from 2004 -2014. But he had his own ideas of leadership. At the swearing in ceremony in 2009, I asked him why he did not become a minister and his reply was: “I don’t want to do ten things at a time. I want to do only one thing at a time.”

PM Cares Fund is yet within the womb of secrecy. Prime Minister’s Office has been unwilling to reveal its secrets ever since its conception and inception three months ago. It is a back step since it flouts transparency, one of the fundamentals of good governance, considered to be antidote to corruption. The very name smacks petty politics, which does not mean ‘Prime Minister Cares’. It was simply a backronym deliberately created to hoodwink the people to make them believe that ‘Prime Minister Cares’. Its real name is Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund.

BATH, Maine—Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and a parade of other prominent politicians are supporting the 4,300 Machinists Local S6 workers forced to strike by their bosses at the Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine.