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Wakf Board. Wakf land, Wakf property. Wakf claim. ‘Once Wakf, always Wakf’. There is enough Wakf to go around for everybody to share. But no, Wakf is limited-ownership. The Muslim can claim ownership of Hindu land, but not vice versa. Just like the PLA salami-slicing India at the LAC, the Wakf Board has been claiming ownership of India’s real-estate, plot by plot, for seven and a half decades. Makes you wonder why Jinnah had to seek a referendum for the creation of Pakistan!

The highlight of the bilateral talks between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the US President Joe Biden in USA on September 21 was the agreement on the setting up of a semi conductor complex in Kolkata having potential of creating large number of jobs in main complex as also in ancillaries. This plant will focus on advanced sensing, communication, and power electronics for national security, next-generation telecommunications, and green energy uses.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake was sworn in on Monday as the ninth President of Sri Lanka in the first election since its economic collapse in 2022. marking a historic moment as the country’s first leftist head of state. The 55-year-old Dissanayake is the leader of the Marxist-leaning Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party.

“No power on earth can bring back Article 370,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi roared in Jammu & Kashmir, apparently having regained some of his vitality after the “half defeat” on June 4. We hope to hear more of his return to form after he returns from the United States. If he meets former President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, newshounds will go to town. In Jammu & Kashmir, the PM spoke his mind addressing a rally in Katra.

The junior doctors’ movement in West Bengal partially ended on its 41st day on September 20 Friday. The striking doctors joined their duties on September 21 in emergency services only in the state government run medical colleges and hospitals still keeping the OPD work and surgical operations out of their duty profile. The outcome of the protracted negotiations on the five point agenda submitted by the Junior Doctors Front, to the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have mostly been positive but the doctors body has indicated full joining only after the directives by the state health department are implemented on ground. It is apparent that the agitating doctors are waiting for the next hearing in the Supreme Court on the RG Kar medico’s rape murder issue scheduled on September 27.

The Supreme Court of India is finds itself at the threshold of a unique opportunity to create history when a bench headed by chief justice D Y Chandrachud takes up next month a clutch of petitions seeking a review of the 2022 verdict concerning the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Seldom does the apex court overturn a decision during a review, but the PMLA review appears to be pregnant with new possibilities.

The recent explosion of thousands of pagers across Lebanon is an alarming development that bears the hallmarks of Israeli involvement, potentially signalling an imminent military escalation between Israel and Hezbollah. This tension has been mounting since Hezbollah’s recent engagement with Israeli forces, a direct response to Israel's intensified military actions against Gaza following the deadly October 7 Hamas-led attack. The strategic aim behind targeting Lebanon's pagers is clear: to cripple Hezbollah’s internal communications, a vital component of its military operations.

What makes the upcoming assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir different from previous ones is the altered constitutional framework. The reorganization post the scrapping of Article 370 brought Jammu and Kashmir under full purview of the constitution. Thus, the new government will have to operate without the autonomy that the law once provided.

Canadian Prime Minister Justine Trudeau is facing one of the toughest challenges in his nine years in power so far. Early this month, Jagmeet Singh’s New Democratic Party (NDP) withdrew support to Trudeau’s minority government. Now, Trudeau is likely going to face a no confidence motion from the opposition soon. And, in order to survive Trudeau will have to seek new alliances.

LONDON: When Keir Starmer scrapped the Tories’ disastrous Rwanda deportations deal within days of assuming office, there was a sigh of relief. Many welcomed what seemed to be a decisive shift away from the previous government’s strategy of using relentless cruelty toward people migrating to distract from their failures to govern.