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Massive street protests erupted worldwide after the Israeli military killed 274 Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp as part of a “hostage rescue operation” in Gaza. Four Israeli captives taken prisoner by Hamas on Oct. 7 were recovered in the manoeuvre, amounting to 68 people killed for every individual extracted. The mass killing pushes the Gaza war death toll, already at over 36,000, even higher.

Would Giorgia Meloni prefer to partner with the “mainstream pro-European” Emmanuel Macron, or else the “far-right outsider” Marine Le Pen? Ahead of this weekend’s elections to the European Union’s parliament, much punditry on the EU’s future speculated on the next moves by the Italian prime minister — deemed a potential “kingmaker” in Brussels coalition-building or else a partner in a new nationalist international. Rival far-right candidates accused Meloni of sucking up to the French president (and to the EU’s top official, Ursula von der Leyen); some more proudly Europeanist commentators hoped Macron and Meloni could “join forces to save Europe.” But now, with Macron calling snap elections that could easily vault Le Pen’s party into the national government, perhaps Meloni won’t have to choose one over the other after all.

Narendra Modi is now Prime Minister of India for the third time. He took the oath of office Sunday evening at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. As many as 30 cabinet ministers, 36 ministers of state (MoS) and 5 MoS (independent charge) were also sworn in along with Narendra Modi, who seemed unusually accommodating while choosing his Council of Ministers. Among them are old suspects like Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, S. Jaishankar, Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman. Key BJP allies Janata Dal-United and the Telugu Desam Party also got representation in Modi’s Council of Ministers.

The NDA coalition government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has just taken office, and it's too early to predict how it will perform, even whether it will run its five-year term. It is common knowledge that India has a messy history of multi-party governments. Late BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee also ran an alliance of 24 parties from 1998 to 2004. India’s experience with coalition governments has been somewhat tumultuous.

The country’s industrial outlook for the current year as well as the next few years will depend on the stability of the new government and how the Bharatiya Janata Party deals with its alliance partners and the opposition, which will have a formidable presence in the newly-elected Parliament. At stake are several large investment projects, including those under foreign direct investment (FDI), worth $30 billion. A good number of them are linked with production of semiconductors and display fab manufacturing. The last government approved an outlay of Rs76,000 crore (>US$10 billion). The government offered fiscal support of 50 percent of project cost on pari-passu basis for all technology nodes under the Scheme for Setting-up of Semiconductor and Display Fabs in India. It included compound semiconductors, silicon photonics, sensors fab and connected facilities.

India, under Prime Minister Garib Kalyan Anna Yojna, has been giving free foodgrains to 80 crore poor people who are dependent for food on government, because they don’t earn enough to support their needs for food. Their number remained the same for the last 10 years of the Modi regime. Children have been facing severe food poverty which Prime Minister Narendra Modi must address urgently in his third term.

At the end of the bitterest general elections in recent times, it is only in Assam that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the main opposition, the Congress, are broadly satisfied with the outcome. The BJP won 11 out of 14 Lok Sabha seats while the badly divided, and always under-estimated Congress, swept the remaining three seats, surprising analysts and defying conventional wisdom.

Punjab with a population of 27 million, the majority of which is Sikh, has in recent times, has given rise to an important movement that seeks to organize the Dalits, who comprise the poorest and most downtrodden section of rural society in the state.

The economic liberalisation of the 1990s brought with it malls and shopping arcades. However, the timeless allure of traditional marketplaces, deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness of Indian society, persists. A significant part of that allure is individuals who earn a living vending goods, spices, vegetables, clothing, toys and more from movable wooden carts or from pavements, commonly known as ‘street-vendors’ or ‘hawkers’ in India.

The coming week or two could determine Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s political fate and reshape the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s Gaza war. That is, if Netanyahu fails to comply with war cabinet member Benny Gantz’s demand that the prime minister produce a plan for the post-war administration of GaIf Gantz resigns, he will likely be joined by fellow war cabinet member and former Israel Defence Forces (IDF) chief of staff Gabi Eisenkot.